Woody Found A Starving Cat Friend In the Woods!

[SnuggleHam]

Well he wasn’t to please about this new cat in his territory. Anyway, my husband and I were working out in the garden for a while, when we finished up I saw my cat woody who was keeping us company for a while walk off into the woods as we went inside. We hadn’t even finished washing our hands when we heard what at first sounded like a whistle. We ran from window to window listening until I clearly heard a high-pitched and long meow coming from outside. It didn’t sound like one of our cats, My first thought was that one of my cats was in trouble! So I went outside and tried to listen for and fallow the meows.



I was led to the forest edge near one of the birdfeeders and saw this cat that looked similar to woody (orange) sitting on a log. That’s when I head the deep throated *Meeerrr* and looked down to see our cat woody who had this poor kitty up on a log to afraid to get off.



I yelled at my husband to hurry and come see. All the time I yelled this new cat seemed calm.. But was more worried about Woody. So at that point I knew it was friendly. We see other cats around, but they are wild and flee when they see you, but you know they are well off because they are fat and look healthy.



Eventually my husband came out with cat treats and shook the container, which got woodsy attention so he’d come out of the woods. I ran and locked him inside while my husband coxed the new cat out with treats, that’s when we saw how thin he was, poor thing, so friendly, loves to head butt, purrs and rubs against you.



We had him in the garage, but because its also the in laws we brought him up and locked him in our bedroom with food/water and a litter box. We aren’t sure what we are going to do. The mother in law who hated but now loves cats may want to keep him. We are waiting for them to come home and take a look, if not we may take him to a shelter, but then my husband had declared that he loved the new kitty, so we may keep him.



Geez three cats! Its fine since they spend most their time outside, but that’s allot of poop in the winter. We will see!



We wouldn’t normally adopt a third cat, but he found us, so maybe it’s meant to be. Why can say. The funny thing is that my husband father was commenting on how the cats aren’t killing enough moles, and I joked about getting another.. Well maybe he’s arrived.



Hopefully we don’t find out he has kitty leukemia or something like that when we take him to the vets…

[SnuggleHam]

My husband and I had a talk about keeping the new cat the other night. The father in law, my husbands father seemed to have a bit of an attitude about us having three cats. I dont see how it matters to him, We rent an apartment above the garage, we have two cats, one lovebird and three large rodent enclosures for my hamsters and gerbils and there has never been any complaints about smell or us not taking care of the apartment, I vacuum all the time and the two of us are very responsible. Having another cat around inst going to affect his way of everyday life :P



But I think he was moody because he had been gone all day at a wedding and he would have rather stayed at home and work on projects around the house, as he loves to do. He cheered up though when he found his father day case of Samuel Adams beer in his beer refrigerator lol. One surprise though is that the mother in law seemed to take a great liking to the new kitty (still without a name) she wants us to keep it. We wanted to know if maybe she wanted it but she says that dad would never let her and I doubt she will argue the case much. I get the feeling she likes our cats coming over to visit and being able to pet them and love them without the worry of feeding or litter box cleaning.



We have talked about keeping him; we have the room and money that inst an issue. But my husband is worried how it will affect his relationship with his favorite cat Yari. And he also feels he likes life the way it is with just our two cats. But he went through all the same thoughts when we were talking about going back to adopt our second cat woody. Iv had multiple cats in my life and have introduced new cats to the household when I loved in Canada with my family. They always spit and hiss and growl, but its more noise then anything else.



We have decided that we are taking him to the vet on Monday and to also see if anyone has reported a missing cat. Any in door out door cat would no get lost; they know their territories and how to get back home. An indoor cat however would be likely to run off and get lost if it got out doors. So I think this cat was either abandoned or got out of its home. But to me, as thin as he is now, I imagine he must have been stray for a couple weeks. So we will call around and see if anyone reported a missing cat, if we dont find him a family thats lost him and missing him we will probably keep him. But iv decided and my husband agree that we feel better knowing hes recuperating in a loving home and not confined in a small cage in a shelter. If we do re-home him we will find new owners ourselves. I just feel that since orange and white cats a so common he will be harder to place with a home through a shelter.



So we will see! Still havnt named him yet, Im trying not to get to attached because I dont want to be sad if he ends up leaving. He was good cat the first night though, didnt bother us much in our sleep, didnt vomit or pop or pee on the floor. He likes doing "steppies" on the bed or on the cat bed we provided but he really digs his claws in when he does it, so I trimmed them back this morning and pulled a few ticks from his face and gave him some flee and tick frontline.

[SnuggleHam]

After talking more last night my husbands feeling seems much stronger in wanting to find the cat a home rather then keep it. Im also a little bit undecided, On one hand who could give this cat a better home then us? Here I know that he is doing well and living a nice relaxed life away from busy roads and kids who pull tails and fur, with lots of room to run, and tons of moles and mice to terrorize outside. If hes here then I know that hes ok. But then it is another vet bill and more front line to use during the tick and flee months :P



When I think of bringing him to a shelter I literally feel sick to my stomach. Even if it is a "no kill" shelter, I hate the idea of being another one of those people that show up with a stray animal and just drop it off in hopes that it will be adopted with no regard for how long the poor animal will be forced to live in a tiny metal cage. Iv been to shelters, and shelters are about trying to save and adopt out as many animals as they have room for. They arent about making luxury enclosures for the animals stay while they are there. And as I said, orange and white cats are common, I worry he will be there for a long time. If we keep him here he would be cooped up in the bedroom till we find him a home, But I think if thats the case we may as well introduce him to the other cats while we search for the owners.



Both my husband and I have tried to make calls to local animal control centers and shelters but it seems as though they dont want themselves accessible to people. One shelter I called never even picked up, I got an automatic voice message that said they were no longer taking cats. So I jest left a message saying I found a stray orange and white cat and wondered if anyone reported it missing. Another shelter I called the number was no longer and service and another I tried a few times is always busy, and in our phone book their arent any listing for animal shelters that deal with tray domestic pets.



We may end up having to post our own flyers in grocery stores, vet offices and on telephone polls to try and find owners ourselves, if there are some owners out there looking for their cat.



What does the future hold for the poor kitty

[SnuggleHam]

Kitty Update Again!!!



Well yesterday both my husband and I made calls to local vet hospitals looking for numbers and referrals to shelters and other places to call about the missing cat with not much luck. So yesterday my husband and I printed up a few flyers and stuck them in zip lock bags and tacked them to tellephone polls a few places in our area, and we have a few more to tack up today on our way to the vets.



Tom stopped at wal-mart and picked up two more cat carriers. We needed an extra for woody and got a third to bring the new cat in. It’s cheaper to take them all at once. As far as we know they will need shots, and the new cat will probably need to be de-wormed, weighed, blood test and ears cleaned out. I’m curious to see how under weight the new guy is. So at this point it’s a fostering situation. Tom knows someone at work who knows of an elderly couple who apparently had a cat that they treated like their child, and it passed away, so they are going to check in with them and tell them about the new kitty.



In the mean time we have decided to go ahead and introduce him to our other cats. I must say that it’s all gone surprisingly well! Almost two well, I’m waiting for something to go wrong! Woody was the first to meet the new kitty; he was the one who found him outside. But it seems woody is very interested in the new cat, he doesn’t show aggressive behavior towards him at all. In fact I took this picture of the two of them sleeping on the bed together!! And I never put them up there, he did that on his own the first day they met! Yari knows the new cat is in here, but she’s acting pretty good. When she was a single cat and we introduced woody she sat in the window sill for two days hissing and growling if he even walked in the room, and she hid allot and spent a few day away from the house lol. This time she just sort of looks at him and walks away, she might hiss here and there but she seems to just be ignoring him for the most part.



Woody is on the left, new cat on the right



(We need a name for this guy, My hubby thought Napoleon, I dunno Im tired of calling him "the new kitty')



The new kitty is being good, my husband and I left the door open to the bedroom and let them roam as they pleased. We never woke up once to the sound of fighting or intense growling. The new cat also knows how to use the litter box which makes me believe he was a house cat at some point.. The new cat is a little possessive over food, he starts to make a fuss if woody comes near and he’s eating, but I believe that mainly because he was without food for a while. Iv seen the two sniff noses, but once and I while the new cat gets a bit pissy and growls, But woody is a good boy, he’s acting pretty respectful and submissive.



So the vet appointment is at 9:45 this morning, it will be fun stuffing them in three cat carriers and listening to them meow at us in the back because they don’t know what’s going on lol. Poor kitties... but I get so much out of taking care of animals

[SnuggleHam]

Napoleon was tested and was negative for kitty leukemia and all that other stuff, so that’s good! He was vaccinated Rabies, Feline Panleukopenia, Feline Rhinotracheitis, Feline Calicivirus and Feline Chlamydia. He was also given medication for de-worming and medication for ear mites. He’s apparently a good weight but could gain one or two more pounds. I guess he’s just a slender cat. So he’s in pretty good shape other wise. He gave the vet a hard time though, he needed to be wrapped in a towel and muzzle him to get his shots.



Woody got all the same shots and I believe. Yari got a shot for feline Leukemia. Yari is going to need to come back in for a teeth cleaning. Anyway 125.00 dollars later its all done and they are all good until another year :P



My husband Tom keeps changing his song and its making me upset. He’s been saying for the past few days that we will see if we can find his original owners or see if this older couple wants him and if not we will keep him. But now he’s saying he never said that and its confusing the hell out of me! Is there a possibility we will keep him or not? It just makes me angry, he says it in this tone " we aren’t keeping the cat!" it reminds me of when I was younger and my parents would do stuff like this, and in the end we would keep it. I don’t know why he has such an attitude about the possibility of it. I mean its obvious the cat gets along fine in our place with the other cats and he’s not giving us a hard time. I do want to look for the original owners incase someone has lost him, but still, I don’t want to bring him to a shelter, and my husband agrees not to. We cant anyway since they are all full, But if we are fostering him for a long time then might as well considered the idea of keeping him... Meh.. Drives me nuts and plays with my emotions.. Maybe I’m just an animal hoarder after all



But there is that update for now. Hopefully Napoleon will allow me to give him his worm mediation, that orally, and we need to put drops in his ears.

[SnuggleHam]

Happy Ending for the Kitty!



We got a phone call during dinner time, A women said she saw our sign and told us she was missing an orange and white cat and asked if we had her kitty. So I asked her if she could describe the cat and give me some specific markings and what she described sounded like the cat we found. She told us where she lived and it turned out she was two driveways over from us! So we drove the cat over to meet her in her driveway, she showed us a picture and we showed her that cat and it was hers! Apparently Napoleon is actual name Morris ( I still like Napoleon better :P )



Anyway from the sounds of it, her cat went missing right around the same day that Woody found him in the woods. Although they were our neighbors we kind of live in back country, there are a bunch of houses but each of them own a bunch of land which allot of it is wetland that by law cant be touched, so there is allot of forest in-between properties, and the properties themselves are all shaped funny so from where we found Morris “aka Napoleon” it still was quite a hike for him.



Apparently though, we had posted one of our "found cat" signs on a telephone poll right on their property! We went for a walk down that road and stopped at a few houses and thought about going to their house but chose not to because their driveway was to long hehe.



We told her about the vets because there was some mediation that he needed to get and so she asked how much it was and for him alone it was about 100 bucks so she wrote us a check to pay for the vet bills This couple had some younger children, a young girl that was 10 and a boy who looked about 14-16. The wife and daughter seemed more happy top have found him :P But they were very nice people and have only been living near us about a year.



So happy ending, and I guess there is a chance we may see Morris again:P I feel good about that, because in a way I feel I haven’t given him up because he’s still so close to us He seemed happy to be at home, he started romping and running around their lawn and playing with his sister cat