It Figures...

I have 3 more cats.

There was once a time when stray cats stayed far, far away from me. I was a rabbit person my whole life. I wasn't particularly fond of cats in general and I never had a dog. I just had rabbits growing up. Then my roommate found a stray cat, handed her to me, and it all went downhill from there!

Now they flock to me - ferals and strays. Suddenly after years of not caring about cats, I now seem to have a sign on my head that says "all cats are welcome here!"

So yes, I have 3 more cats. Apparently they live under the shed in my backyard. A few weeks ago I saw 3 cats in the backyard. This wasn't highly unusual because lots of people around here have outdoor cats and they tend to wander into other people's yards. What WAS unusual, was that they all looked the same, as if they were from the same litter, AND when I opened the door and scared them, they all ran right under the shed - like they knew it was there. I would have thought that if they were just playing in the yard, they would have sniffed around the shed a little and then went under it. But nope. They knew exactly where the hole was to fit under it.

Then so many other things started happening in my life (have I mentioned I can't wait for this deployment to be over? I'm so scatterbrained and stressed, and I wasn't like this before Mr. V left. I just can't get myself organized.), so I kind of forgot about the cats under the shed.

Fast forward to a few days ago. My friend stopped by to drop something off and she saw something run across my backyard, and she thought it was a cat. It was dusk so it was hard to see, but she said it looked like it ran under the shed. Thats when I remembered the shed cats! So that night I put some food out next to the shed. My plan was to see if they came out from underneath it, and they did. 2 of them. Within 2 minutes of me putting the food out, there they were. I didn't see them come from the shed, but I would think that if they came from a different yard they would have taken more than 2 minutes to find that food. Then they inhaled the food. So they were obviously hungry. Eventually, these 2 disappeared back under the shed. Last night I put food out for them again, but I didn't see them at all. Then this morning I woke up, looked out the window and saw 3 cats frolicking in my backyard, and the food bowl is empty. I say "frolicking" because thats exactly what they were doing. They weren't just casually strolling through my backyard. They were playing in it like they owned it. And then, they ran back under the shed.

Sooooo great! I apparently have 3 cats living in my backyard. I don't know where they came from or how long they have been there. I don't know if they are strays or ferals, but my next step is to get them spayed and/or neutered because as much as I love cats, the last thing I need is a litter of kittens in my backyard along with these 3 cats. So out comes the feral cat trap! Wish me luck on this and cross your fingers that they are friendly. If they are friendly, then maybe I can find homes for them. If they aren't, then it looks like they are going to be trapped, neutered and released right back into my backyard. (and if anyone is wondering why, when you do TNR, they tell you that you have to release them back where you found them. You can't just relocate them because that confuses the cat and can ultimitely be bad for it in the long run.)

So seriously, why do they always find me? There are plenty of houses in this neighborhood, but they found MY shed. Why??