The Creek Cats

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

We’ve had a stray male kitty hanging around the neighborhood since late last year. He would come up to our house most every night to get a bite to eat. We could never get close enough the do the old collar trick. You know, when you put a collar (with your phone number on the tag) on the stray kitty to see if you get a phone call from his actual owners… I could only get close enough to see this kitty was unneutered.

Here he is captured on our wildlife camera. The date and time are wrong....

He liked to pick fights with the other neighborhood kitties because….well, that’s what intact males do….. We almost immediately put out a box trap (with the door removed) and would feed him in it every night. When we felt like he was comfortable enough, we decided to set the trap. No luck! Anytime that trap was set, he knew it and he wouldn’t go near it. We tried jack mackerel, tuna, catnip for cats……nothing would entice him enough to enter. This was frustrating! Finally, we decided to use the drop trap, the same trap that helped us capture Gretchen a few years ago. Worked like a charm on the first attempt! Yay! So we took him to the vet and had him neutered, vaccinated and ear-tipped.

Big Boy with his ear-tip!

We call him “Big Boy.” Big Boy’s trips to our house at night aren’t quite as frequent since his neuter. Can’t say I blame him, I’d probably be pretty mad too. However, the great news is he is no longer picking fights with the neighborhood outdoor cats and he is no longer able to spread his seed :) Yay for TNR!

Dixie Dog and Her Seeing-eye Cat, Maya!

I just can’t believe my Maya is 12 years old. It’s hard to believe that 12 years ago we were bottle feeding him and his sister, Chevelle, after they had been abandoned by their feral mother at a dilapidated horse barn. He hasn’t always been the healthiest of kitties and I often wonder if it’s because he didn’t get his mother’s milk long enough? His weight has never been much over 10lbs and up until a few years ago, he had pretty bad asthma. Since Maya is getting older, his appetite isn’t what it used to be. Lately, he pretty much turns his nose up at dry kibble, so I’ve switched him to canned cat food. He seems to prefer this much better and it’s not as much of a challenge to get him to eat his meals.

One of Maya’s great attributes is his love of our Dixie Dog. Dixie is maybe 13 or 14 years old (rescued, so the age is unknown) and she has gone completely blind. Maya is almost always at her side when she walks around the living room. We joke that he’s her seeing-eye cat and he’s guiding her through the maze of furniture.

Maya also likes to stand behind Dixie and let her whap him with her tail. I never have understood why he does this, but he sure does seem to enjoy it. He also really enjoys nibbling on her ears and jowls. Dixie never seems to mind; in fact I know she loves the attention.