- Joined
- Jul 9, 2019
- Messages
- 18
- Purraise
- 60
So about four months ago we noticed that a new cat was hanging around our area. I live in a mobile home park and we have deliberately left an opening on two sides of our mobile home for our indoor/outdoor cats to shelter under while outside. We have a "doggy door" in our kitchen, so our kitties can come and go as they please. As y'all know who have read my initial posts on the forums, we lost my bestest friend kitty, Nemo, last summer. I'm mostly over that now, knowing that we made the last five years of his life GREAT. Anyway, this beautiful shiny gray adult kitty with a clipped left ear began making an appearance about four months ago. Then, about three months ago I started leaving food out for him, reasoning that if he hadn't gone away, he likely was going to stick around (we didn't feed or encourage him for the first month he was around). Well, in November we had a couple nights with some very cold temps (around 10-15 degrees at night) and we decided to bring the gray kitty inside at night. By this time, the gray kitty, whom we had named "Smokey", was living under our mobile home and coming out for LUVS when I brought out food for him. That first night was rough. Smokey ended up locked in our master bedroom with my wife and I ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room along with our own two kitties. The next morning we let him out. (IMPORTANT NOTE FOR YOU MEN OUT THERE WHO ARE ABOUT TO GET MARRIED: make sure you have a comfortable couch, because at some point you WILL be using it on occasion!)
Anyway, long story short, Smokey is now coming and going through the "doggy door" (he saw our kitties using it and figured out what it was for--cats are SMART). Our kitties aren't exactly fond of him and there are some minor scuffles with one of the FLUFFY BOYZ (Puffin), but it's mainly posturing and sometimes entertaining. This morning, Puffin did one of his bluff charges at Smokey, and Smokey looked at him like, "Oh, really?". Then Puffin turned to walk away and Smokey jumped at him, smacking Puffin's hindquarters with both his front paws and then leaping backwards out of reach of any retaliatory strikes by Puffin. Puffin let out a cry of surprise and spun around, as if he was astonished that Smokey would dare "get" him. I was cracking up. I checked Puffin--no scratches, it was a clawless attack. Smokey is clearly a younger cat and has a strong curiosity about things, which results in his invading the personal space of our two kitties sometimes. But he never tries to attack anyone--he's just trying to get acquainted. In fact, on a couple of occasions, he has sniffed noses with each of our kitties. It looks like I'm simply witnessing "cat politics".
So, about the clipped left ear on Smokey...it is my understanding based on some online research that the straight-clipped left ear indicates a feral cat that has been captured, inoculated, and spayed/neutered (Smokey is a boy), and then released back into the wild. I have my doubts that he is/was truly feral. Smokey has NO problems with snuggling on the couch with me or my wife for 30-60 minutes at a time. He LOVES human bonding. However, he does get his fill of being inside and after a period of time will need to go out. I wonder if he started as feral but became acquainted with a kindhearted human, and then returned to the wild for some reason. And now Smokey has us. My wife was NOT fond of us taking on another cat, due to the stress it would inevitably cause to our remaining two kitties. However, we also couldn't bear to leave beautiful Smokey out in the cold. Our local animal shelter isn't interested in taking in new cats, so our options were pretty much to ignore Smokey and hope he survives somehow with the raptors, owls, raccoons and coyotes in our area (not an option) or to try and take him in and make it work with our existing kitties.
As of today, our existing kitties (the FLUFFY BOYZ) are still not fond of Smokey, but they do seem to be finding some semblance of a tolerable coexistence--with the occasional minor spat.
Anyway, long story short, Smokey is now coming and going through the "doggy door" (he saw our kitties using it and figured out what it was for--cats are SMART). Our kitties aren't exactly fond of him and there are some minor scuffles with one of the FLUFFY BOYZ (Puffin), but it's mainly posturing and sometimes entertaining. This morning, Puffin did one of his bluff charges at Smokey, and Smokey looked at him like, "Oh, really?". Then Puffin turned to walk away and Smokey jumped at him, smacking Puffin's hindquarters with both his front paws and then leaping backwards out of reach of any retaliatory strikes by Puffin. Puffin let out a cry of surprise and spun around, as if he was astonished that Smokey would dare "get" him. I was cracking up. I checked Puffin--no scratches, it was a clawless attack. Smokey is clearly a younger cat and has a strong curiosity about things, which results in his invading the personal space of our two kitties sometimes. But he never tries to attack anyone--he's just trying to get acquainted. In fact, on a couple of occasions, he has sniffed noses with each of our kitties. It looks like I'm simply witnessing "cat politics".
So, about the clipped left ear on Smokey...it is my understanding based on some online research that the straight-clipped left ear indicates a feral cat that has been captured, inoculated, and spayed/neutered (Smokey is a boy), and then released back into the wild. I have my doubts that he is/was truly feral. Smokey has NO problems with snuggling on the couch with me or my wife for 30-60 minutes at a time. He LOVES human bonding. However, he does get his fill of being inside and after a period of time will need to go out. I wonder if he started as feral but became acquainted with a kindhearted human, and then returned to the wild for some reason. And now Smokey has us. My wife was NOT fond of us taking on another cat, due to the stress it would inevitably cause to our remaining two kitties. However, we also couldn't bear to leave beautiful Smokey out in the cold. Our local animal shelter isn't interested in taking in new cats, so our options were pretty much to ignore Smokey and hope he survives somehow with the raptors, owls, raccoons and coyotes in our area (not an option) or to try and take him in and make it work with our existing kitties.
As of today, our existing kitties (the FLUFFY BOYZ) are still not fond of Smokey, but they do seem to be finding some semblance of a tolerable coexistence--with the occasional minor spat.
and then he ended being included in a Trap/Neuter/Release "sweep" thus the clipped ear.
