Cats and MORE cats!

We now have 2 more cats to add to the critter total. Actually we "had" them all along... they were some trapped and neutered ferals that K took pity on when it was too cold to return them to their colony, post-op. Tiny kittens, bare naked bellies, cold January winds on the beach (they were caught at a hotel in Atlantic Beach, ON the ocean.

We tried for months to tame them in the house with our other, totally house cats, but they would not tame. They hid out under and behind, and never really did get the cat box thing, 'cause to do that they would have to COME OUT from their hidey holes... and venture into the bathroom.

Eventually I got tired of trying to extract them from places and K got tired of the smell of cat presents he could never quite find all of and reluctantly caught them and released them outside where we continued to feed them and they lived, for some time, under the house.

Then, they were gone. Or at least they were not coming to eat or being seen and after a long while of getting disgusted over having fed general strays and loose dogs, we stopped feeding.

Then, as they went, they returned... we began to have sightings... and then there would be a cry on the porch and it was one of the sisters... so we began feeding again, but only on days (more often nights) of a sighting.

They seemed to be getting tamer, not sure why, and I started not feeding the main visitor, Kindness, unless she first allowed me to touch, and then later to pet her. Her "sister" Abby would never come closer than the end of the porch and strangely enough, there was quite a bit of animosity between them. When Abby was around, Kindness would not let me pet and was very skittish.

K was upset at the thought of just leaving them, though they were "feral" by all intents and purposes and bought a live trap. We began feeding them IN the trap a couple of weeks ago and tonight decided to try to catch Kindness -- as she was the most domestic we figured it would be the easiest catch.

In point of fact, Abby showed up first, so we removed the safety from the trap and put in their usual bowl of food, and though she was cautious at first, in less than 5 minutes, she was caught.
Far from being a hissing ball of fluff, Abby allowed K to remove her from the trap by hand, went into her crate without much fuss and allowed us both to pet her when we let her loose later in the empty bedroom where we have the cat crates. She even purred... and not the "please don't eat me" purr either!

We hoped that Kindness hadn't been around to see, re-set the trap and waited. About half an hour later, Kindness appeared and (smelling Abby's scent) was VERY cautious. K feared she would set the trap off before she entered us, but she was shortly successfully trapped as well. And counter to our expectations, SHE was the wild one, attacking the trap like a cat with PTSD. LOL After we got her to her new digs, though, she calmed down.

One large worry out of the way, two more "sirens" heading north...