My cats
Yes. Mine. They're arriving on Saturday.
I don't actually hate cats. I just pretend not to like them to keep peace in the house, because everybody else in the house either hates cats or also pretends to hate them. It's kind of the way I pretend to be a Braves fan, except that I actually don't care about sports at all and I do kind of like the occasional cat.
Anyway, these cats will be working cats. They are intended to hunt the mice and voles who think they own my property. The cats are feral, and they've been trapped by a cat-lover in Alexandria who is a friend of my SIL Miriam. The idea is to spay/neuter them and then return them to their colony. If you remove them from the colony or kill them, that doesn't really solve anything, because other cats will move in to fill the vacuum. If you spay/neuter and return them, the colony's population will stabilize and eventually decline. No more kittens -- and about half of all feral kittens die within a year of their birth, which is bery sad, so this is a really good thing. See www.alleycat.org for details.
The colony that these feral cats inhabit is about to be bulldozed. So they need a new home. They will never be cuddly pets; they have learned to be skittish of people. Because I don't want a cuddly cat, that's fine.
I am allergic to cats and besides live with four large dogs, so I can't have an inside cat. Miriam told her friend about me, and the friend fell on me with glad cries. See, these cats can have the barn -- well, it's really more like a large shed -- to themselves. I'll feed them, because that's how you get cats to hunt; they aren't hungry, so they hunt for sport. The barn is near the garden, and the garden is what I really care about them policing, because the voles have been eating the grassroots there. They are NOT allowed to eat the roots of my incipient garden.
The cats will be confined to a cage in my barn for a few weeks while I feed them and clean their litterbox. I'll talk to them and get them used to me. Then one day I will leave the cage door open, and we'll see if they stay.
They're being altered tomorrow. On Saturday, Miriam's friend is bringing them out here.
One is gold and the other is black. I'm thinking maybe Mungo and Dymphna for names. We'll see. Can't really name them without seeing them, can I?
I don't actually hate cats. I just pretend not to like them to keep peace in the house, because everybody else in the house either hates cats or also pretends to hate them. It's kind of the way I pretend to be a Braves fan, except that I actually don't care about sports at all and I do kind of like the occasional cat.
Anyway, these cats will be working cats. They are intended to hunt the mice and voles who think they own my property. The cats are feral, and they've been trapped by a cat-lover in Alexandria who is a friend of my SIL Miriam. The idea is to spay/neuter them and then return them to their colony. If you remove them from the colony or kill them, that doesn't really solve anything, because other cats will move in to fill the vacuum. If you spay/neuter and return them, the colony's population will stabilize and eventually decline. No more kittens -- and about half of all feral kittens die within a year of their birth, which is bery sad, so this is a really good thing. See www.alleycat.org for details.
The colony that these feral cats inhabit is about to be bulldozed. So they need a new home. They will never be cuddly pets; they have learned to be skittish of people. Because I don't want a cuddly cat, that's fine.
I am allergic to cats and besides live with four large dogs, so I can't have an inside cat. Miriam told her friend about me, and the friend fell on me with glad cries. See, these cats can have the barn -- well, it's really more like a large shed -- to themselves. I'll feed them, because that's how you get cats to hunt; they aren't hungry, so they hunt for sport. The barn is near the garden, and the garden is what I really care about them policing, because the voles have been eating the grassroots there. They are NOT allowed to eat the roots of my incipient garden.
The cats will be confined to a cage in my barn for a few weeks while I feed them and clean their litterbox. I'll talk to them and get them used to me. Then one day I will leave the cage door open, and we'll see if they stay.
They're being altered tomorrow. On Saturday, Miriam's friend is bringing them out here.
One is gold and the other is black. I'm thinking maybe Mungo and Dymphna for names. We'll see. Can't really name them without seeing them, can I?