Tales of the Moggy Horde or How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love Bast

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One of those quietly disturbing things is when you're lying in bed and somewhere nearby you hear a cat hacking and hacking, but when you get up in the morning you look and look and look and can't find a hairball anywhere. Where is the invisible hairball?!

And now, your smile for the day: the world's most patient cat.

The saga of the Stray Cat has come to a bittersweet close. To our surprise, she used the carrier to sleep in, going in and out of it freely when we gave her some final scritchies late last night. She was out there this morning and eagerly chowed down a bowl of dry food. I went outside, sat on the steps next to the carrier, and gave her lots of attention. She purred away. After a bit, I put more food in the bowl and placed the bowl deep inside the carrier. She was hesitant, but eventually she went in, grabbed a single piece of food and quickly backed out to eat it. I petted her and told her how good she was. She went back inside and began to eat. I gently moved her tail inside and closed the door.

She was quite unhappy about that, but to my relief didn't go crazy like some cats I've had. I once had a tuxedo cat named Sly who would become totally psychotic if he was contained in any kind of cage or carrier. This girl remained pretty quiet all the way to the Humane Society. Once there, she was docile and easy to handle. The woman who checked her in confirmed that she's female and that she wasn't chipped. I have info that will allow me to check on her progress. It hurt me to leave her there and I nearly cried. If we didn't have a rental situation, we would have kept her, but it just isn't feasible here.

We had debated continuing to take care of her as an outdoor cat, but winter will soon be here and I know myself too well. I couldn't bear to leave her outside in cold, wet, miserable weather, no matter how well we were caring for her. This way she's safe, sheltered, well fed, looked after medically and has a chance to be adopted. She has such a loving, affectionate personality. I hope she finds a good home soon.

Last night, we gave the Stray Cat canned food for the first time. I was surprised that she/he only ate part of it and left quite a bit behind. For a cat that's so skinny, it's odd she didn't gobble it down. We didn't want to leave it out there for too long, but wanted to give her a chance to come back for more. About twenty minutes later, I came back into the kitchen, looked out back and found a damned raccoon polishing off the last of the food. It took off so fast, I mostly only saw its tail. That's the first direct sighting I've had of a raccoon around here.

This morning I talked to a woman at the local Humane Society and got the info about bringing in the Stray Cat. She turned up this morning for food. I'd already set a carrier outside with the door open, off to the side. We sat outside on the steps while she ate and gave her lots of petting and attention. When she seemed relaxed, I got hold of her by the scruff of the neck and began to put her into the carrier.

She freaked out, did a 180 degree u-bend and zoomed out before I could shut the door. Off she went. I totally blew it. We bemoaned our failure all day and worried about whether she'd come back, what it would take to win her trust again, etc.

She showed up in the early evening as usual. We gave her dry food and canned food. She demanded lots of petting and attention. Whew. We've left the carrier where it was, covered with a towel in case she might decide to sleep in it. Highly unlikely, but it can't hurt. I'll make another attempt to catch her in the morning.

We reached the turning point with Stray Cat already. We're now leaning toward Stray Cat being female, though she's too fluffy and long-haired to tell for sure. She's coming around regularly for feedings and gradually becoming less afraid of us. Today, Randy said she began to talk to him when he brought the food out and didn't run too far away. She even relaxed enough to stretch before coming to the food bowl.

This evening, when I talked to her from the door, she rolled around on the patio. I sat down on the back steps to see if I could entice her over...and she came! She was slightly hesitant, but not for long and I was able to pet her. I was shocked at how boney she is under all that fur! Just skin and bones, the poor thing, but she's getting plenty of food and water now. A little later, Randy did the same thing. He sat on the back steps and had a long petting session with her.

With luck, we should be able to get her to the Humane Society pretty soon, get medical treatment for her and hopefully find her a good home. A shame it can't be us, but we just can't do it.

Pippin made a visit to a cat neurologist today. Not a cat who is neurologist, but a nice expensive specialist. Randy had to take him, which was just as well because Randy was the one who saw Pippin have the episode with the tremor. Unfortunately, there are no many possiblities and so little in the way of symptoms, that we didn't come away with anything helpful. That is, unless we want to pay around $3,500 for an MRI and other tests that still might or might not show anything. Not to mention being terribly stressful on poor Pippy, who would have to be knocked out for the procedures, with the risks that entails. So for now, it's wait and see and hope nothing serious develops.

One of the girls, either Saffy or Opal, pulled one of my sleeveless tees from the pile of laundry, then left a mousie next to it. I found the offering when I got up this morning.

Stray Cat is spending a lot of time in our back yard. We've been able to get good looks at him/her in the daylight now, as well as night. I'm leaning toward Stray Cat being a male, because of the shape of head and neck, but it's impossible to be sure. He has a huge, fluffy tail and never lifts it. He looks quite scruffy. Then again, so does Jetta, and she's an indoor cat. I could spend hours brushing Jetta and she'd still look scruffy.

Stray Cat remains totally scared of us and Pippin. He slinks away when he spots Pippin glaring at him from the kitchen door. But he comes back within a couple of minutes after we put out the food for him. He seems to know the sound of dry food being shaken in a dish. Oddly, we've never seen him touch the water.

Yesterday morning, Stray Cat provided his own breakfast -- a rat! Go, Stray Cat, go! Help yourself to the rats. Of course, he also goes after the birds and that's not a good thing.

It may be too difficult and time-consuming to win Stray Cat over with food and patience before winter arrives. We may have to resort to a trap.

I've been out of the country and I've been insanely busy, so I've neglected the Moggyblog.

The last week of September, I went to the Netherlands as the Guest of Honor at JemCon, for fans of Jem and the Holograms, the animation series I developed and wrote. My moggies were quite glad to see me when I got back.

Immediately upon returning, my Aussie stepdaughter arrived to visit for a few days, plus the game project I'm working on at Zynga is in crunch mode, so it's been nuts.

Randy had a scare with Pippin just before I got home from the trip. Pippin's had a couple of incidents over the years that seem neurological in nature. This time, his head shook with a tremor for ten to fifteen seconds. It stopped and he's been fine since, other than having a touch of intestinal unhappiness. He's such a sensitive cat, the intestinal upset could come from me being gone and then a stranger in the house. We're giving him pumpkin puree to try and get that settled down.

One time when we had to clean his rear end, he got so furious and worked up about it that he actually gave Randy a nasty bite on the hand.

We took Pippin to the vet for a full blood work-up. His weight is back down to the 18 lb. range. There are two liver enzymes that are way too high. From the research I did, it indicates some form of muscle damage rather than liver damage. His red blood cell count is high, as usual, but it's been that way pretty much his whole life. We have an appointment next week with a feline neurologist.

We're feeding a stray cat, as of tonight. About four nights ago, during a storm, we saw a long-haired black cat hunched up in the back yard beneath the bird feeder. I'm surprised it's taken this long for a cat to stake out our yard full of birds, squirrels and rats.

She reminds us of Jetta. She's shy and takes off as soon as we open the door or try to talk to her. She's been showing up every night, so tonight I took out bowls of food and water. She ran off, but obviously not very far. As soon as I was inside, she returned to eat. She polished off the first small serving. I took out more, she ran off and then came back and ate the second, larger serving.

We haven't seen her around before and she doesn't have a collar, so we'll probably continue to feed her and try to catch or trap her before winter sets in, then take her to the Peninsula Humane Society. I'd better check around with a few neighbors first, though, just in case it does turn out to be someone's cat!

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