I decided to post another entry about the cat. 

 

The cat is still with us.  Nobody has approached us to claim the cat yet.  It has been more than a week since we found him.  We found the cat wandering on our deck around 10am on Saturday, 4/30/11.  I later found out that some other people had also seen him that morning as well.  One is our next door neighbor who saw him near our neighborhood and the other is a woman who saw him at the school while walking her dog.   That woman mentioned to me that she was contemplating of adopting the cat in the event that the cat is a stray but gave up the idea in fear that her cat would not get along with the newcomer.  Our neighbor who posted the fliers and kept him for two days also indicated that they could not adopt the cat because they have a declawed cat at home.  The mystery of a declawed cat!

         

I have told you already that I am not a pet person, not to mention a cat person.  In my previous blog, you have learnt the main reason that I decided to keep the cat as long as nobody shows up to claim him.  However, that is not the sole reason.  Even though I tend to cave in my kids’ demand, I am not without principles.  This cat will eat whatever you gave him and will stay wherever you place him.  He will even tolerate being constantly picked up by my son which hinders his mobility to freely hunt his prey.    He would never struggle viciously to try to get out of our grip that prohibits him from going wherever he wants to go.  All he does is a soft meow.  He would meow at you when he wants to be petted.  He would rub himself against your legs or tap you with his tail to seek your attention.  He would lie down asking you to stroke his tummy.  He is such a mellow, even-temperate, friendly and affectionate cat. 

 

We believe that he used to have an owner right before we found him on our deck, judging from his interaction with people and how clean he was when we first found him.  He didn’t strike us as a cat that hasn’t been fed for days.  He looks fit and healthy and has proven to be a great hunter.  He knows to use liter box.  The one accident he had was due to the fact that we did not provide him with a liter box.  We put newspaper inside a box assuming that he would know to use it.  All of what we saw convinces us that he is not a stray.  He likes to stay outdoors.  It could be that his previous owner kept him both indoors and outdoors.  He had ventured out twice for the entire day until we got home from work.  The first time we found him right next to our next door neighbor’s doggie pool.  The second time he went to my son’s school and stayed there for the whole day.  We don’t know if we will be able to find him again if we let him out for the whole day without supervision the next time.  We have been walking the cat since last Saturday.  He is now much better at following us when we are about to leave.              

 

I wondered how the cat wandered to our neighborhood.  Could it be the catnip that my neighbors grow?  My next door neighbor, not the one with the dog, used to have a cat but she died a year or two ago.  This cat likes to nibble on catnip and to roll his body all over the dirt around it.  I don’t know if our next door neighbor would mind his eating their catnip.  Anyway, we went to buy a pot of catnip so he can enjoy this drug to his fullest content.  We later found out that there is catnip growing right under our tree.  We actually don’t have to go through the trouble of finding a nursery that carries catnip.

 

I think that we will probably continue to keep him but to let him out with supervision to satisfy his need of hunting and the ability to freely roaming outside to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.  I have been thinking about building an outdoor cat enclosure, a huge fenced area with no roof, something like the one shown in this article.   http://www.a-house-full-of-cats.com/outdoorcatenclosure.html   My husband didn’t want to build anything.  Anyway, I will keep exploring until I find an easy and cheap solution to keep the cat outdoors safely.    

 

Written by Elisa English

On May 10th, 2011

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