local wildlife

[dianec42]

It occurs to me, the other thing that may be waking the cats early is the local strays. Scairdy scratched at the front door this morning for the first time in ages; maybe they're making eyes at our cats through the glass in the pre-dawn gloom or something.

I'm really worried about Psycho. The last time we saw her, she had obviously been in a huge fight. And now we haven't seen her in several days. [I suppose we've gone days without seeing any particular one before, but I'm still worried. Not that we can do anything anyway -- we considered trying to catch her and take her to the vet, but she's totally wild and it wouldn't have gone well for anybody.]

Comments

[merde.livejournal.com]

your local SPCA is the place to go. the SPCA will rent you a humane trap (here it's $1/day) so you can catch strays living on your property. you can then take an injured cat to the vet, or bring apparently healthy cats to the SPCA to be checked for diseases, vaccinated against rabies, and spayed/neutered if necessary. they cut a tiny notch in the cat's ear; the notch lets people know the cat's been altered. that whole service costs $40 here.

they'll release the cat into your custody. they recommend adopting out socialized cats. if the cat is feral you can just release it back into your yard, but usually the SPCA wants you to agree to feed it and get it veterinary care if it's injured or sick.

haineux's fiancee is the neighborhood cat lady. they've had as many as 12 cats hanging around their house (most not allowed indoors due to poor socialization). when a new cat shows up, they trap it, take it to the SPCA, and spend as long as it takes to socialize it before they can adopt it out. they're awesome people. if i ever live in a house, or at least a ground-floor dwelling, i plan to do exactly the same.

i, uh, really like cats.