A long time ago I attempted to start posting "Meow Mondays" and of course, I slacked off and only did 2 or 3 of them. In an effort to be a better blogger amd to share the amusing cat antics I came across this morning I'm going to try again to post weekly cat fun.
As for today - This is SK. Called SK by me, but called Shitay Kitay by Mr. V. He's a stray that was living in the parking lot of the hotel we lived in for 2 months when we first moved back to Texas. He was pretty feral, but we fed him every night and when we moved into our house we trapped him and took him with us.
I wanted to tame him and find him a home, so we put him in a large dog crate (which is recommended when you relocate feral cats) for about 2 months. 2 months is NOT the recommended amount of time to leave them in a cage (I think its 2-4 weeks that is suggested), but I promise it was a large cage (actually 2 large ones tied together) and he had more than enough room to move around. It turns out he took longer to tame than I had anticipated (for anyone wondering, we've successfully tamed several ferals already so we're used to this...I just underestimated the feral-ness of this one) AND he's a VERY dominant male cat, so when we did let him out of the cage, he would violently attack another stray that has been in this neighborhood for years now. I was starting to get worried because I couldn't have him trying to kill other cats in our yard, but letting him live in a cage forever wasn't an acceptable solution either.
To make a long story short, eventually we let him out of the cage permanently and decided that the other strays in the neighborhood would just have to work it out with him. I had naively assumed that we could find a home for him, not taking into account the fact that Corpus Christi has more stray animals than any other city I've ever lived in. I also thought that once we let him out of the cage, he'd run off. I assumed he'd come back for food, but that was all. I didn't think he'd be our backyard cat forever.
Instead, he has parked himself in our backyard and NEVER leaves. He owns the yard. He has successfully scared off any neighborhood stray that comes into our yard, and he doesn't tolerate my inside cats very well either (when they escape outside). This is now HIS yard and Mr. V and I have joked around that when we sell or rent the house we'll have to advertise it by saying, "It comes with a cat." We haven't figured out what we're going to do with him when we move yet. I had no intentions of taking him in as my own cat since we're maxed out. So now I have a stray cat in my backyard, who thinks he owns every inch of the backyard, and I guess he's technically mine now since I feed him (and yes we've gotten him neutered), even though that was never the plan.
Anyway, this is what I saw this morning when I looked outside the bedroom window. Did I mention that he thinks he owns the backyard? These aren't the greatest picture since they were taken on my phone, through a window that really needs to be cleaned, but here's Shitay Kitay aka SK sleeping in one of Mr. V's plants. Clearly, that plant was put there to serve as a bed for him.
As for today - This is SK. Called SK by me, but called Shitay Kitay by Mr. V. He's a stray that was living in the parking lot of the hotel we lived in for 2 months when we first moved back to Texas. He was pretty feral, but we fed him every night and when we moved into our house we trapped him and took him with us.
I wanted to tame him and find him a home, so we put him in a large dog crate (which is recommended when you relocate feral cats) for about 2 months. 2 months is NOT the recommended amount of time to leave them in a cage (I think its 2-4 weeks that is suggested), but I promise it was a large cage (actually 2 large ones tied together) and he had more than enough room to move around. It turns out he took longer to tame than I had anticipated (for anyone wondering, we've successfully tamed several ferals already so we're used to this...I just underestimated the feral-ness of this one) AND he's a VERY dominant male cat, so when we did let him out of the cage, he would violently attack another stray that has been in this neighborhood for years now. I was starting to get worried because I couldn't have him trying to kill other cats in our yard, but letting him live in a cage forever wasn't an acceptable solution either.
To make a long story short, eventually we let him out of the cage permanently and decided that the other strays in the neighborhood would just have to work it out with him. I had naively assumed that we could find a home for him, not taking into account the fact that Corpus Christi has more stray animals than any other city I've ever lived in. I also thought that once we let him out of the cage, he'd run off. I assumed he'd come back for food, but that was all. I didn't think he'd be our backyard cat forever.
Instead, he has parked himself in our backyard and NEVER leaves. He owns the yard. He has successfully scared off any neighborhood stray that comes into our yard, and he doesn't tolerate my inside cats very well either (when they escape outside). This is now HIS yard and Mr. V and I have joked around that when we sell or rent the house we'll have to advertise it by saying, "It comes with a cat." We haven't figured out what we're going to do with him when we move yet. I had no intentions of taking him in as my own cat since we're maxed out. So now I have a stray cat in my backyard, who thinks he owns every inch of the backyard, and I guess he's technically mine now since I feed him (and yes we've gotten him neutered), even though that was never the plan.
Anyway, this is what I saw this morning when I looked outside the bedroom window. Did I mention that he thinks he owns the backyard? These aren't the greatest picture since they were taken on my phone, through a window that really needs to be cleaned, but here's Shitay Kitay aka SK sleeping in one of Mr. V's plants. Clearly, that plant was put there to serve as a bed for him.
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