Each month there’s an interesting push and pull between the old and the new when it comes to feral cats. Every cat, of course, is an entirely fresh world to us, unlike any before or yet to come. Every cat we help launches a very new life.
And yet, there are certain old lessons in which the cats keep schooling us. (We humans can be a bit slow, so it’s good that they are patient teachers.) This month, our feral cats are teaching us through that old Sesame Street game: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others.
You remember the setup. Grover and friends would dance around and show you a series of objects: a blueberry, a mango, an apple, a tractor. Your job was to pick out the oddball. It seems our feral friends enjoy the same game, and this month we’ve played it twice.
When the call came from an apartment complex in our TNR target area, we prepared for the usual. Our team whirled off with their traps and wet food and oodles of experience, ready for the 10-12 stray cats we’d been called to help.
Then the game began.
The first five cats we trapped were:
1. An unneutered, very feral cat
2. An unneutered, very feral cat
3. An unneutered, very feral cat
4. An unneutered, very feral cat
5. An extremely friendly, spayed female cat with a head the shape and size of a cantaloupe
One of these things just didn’t belong. (She’s pictured below.)
We can’t know for certain, but it seems likely that the round-headed snuggler, who we’ve named Nigella, was an unceremonious addition to the colony. That’s a fancy way of saying she was dumped.
At some point in her past, Nigella was spayed, owned, and loved enough to be eager for our affection. Our powers of deduction suggest that some doers of dastardly deeds wanted to “get rid of” their cat, saw that this feral cat colony was being fed, and snuck Nigella into the community. This sort of phenomenon is unfortunately common, but your generosity helped to rewrite Nigella’s story.
Today, Nigella is loving it up at Tabby’s Place. She’s a championship muffin-maker, kneading her paws with delight and purring at your touch. Understandably, Nigella’s past has spooked her a bit, so we’ll need to work with her patiently to restore her trust in humanity. But, such is the joy and the calling of loving feral cats…and their not-quite-feral stray friends.
Nigella wasn’t the only star of the game in this particular feral colony. When we went back for the remaining cats, we were again amazed, this time by the calico quotient. Amidst the next batch of “true ferals” was one tiny, timid, very loving calico (pictured above). She became our next resident: Sandrine.
Unlike Nigella, Sandrine appears to have been born in the feral colony. At eight months of age, she’s seen enough kindness from her human caretakers that she’s willing to take a chance on us…usually. Sandrine is just a wee bit mixed up. She’ll purr and chatter and meow happily as you pet her, only to suddenly dart back and hiss. Those hisses are being swallowed up by sweetness as time goes by, and we know she’s on her way to a heart wide open.
So what of the non-outliers, the ten “true feral” cats in Nigella and Sandrine’s colony? Of course, they came bearing their own lessons. Well-loved by their colony caretakers, the cats were all amply fed and in encouragingly good health. All they lacked was an end to their baby-making days — and that’s where Tabby’s Place came in. Thanks to your generosity, little Sandrine will have been the last kitten born to this colony, and her kinfolk will know a more stable, secure life in the years to come.
Loving stray and feral cats is never a simple story, and with each feline we learn anew what it means to love a creature in all her uniqueness. On behalf of all the cats in our TNR program, from the snuggly Sandrines to her wild and wonderful forebears, thank you for your love and generosity.