Front Door Cats

We used to be reasonable people when it came to cats.  Yes, we always had a couple and sometimes more than a couple but never enough to be called crazy cat people.  Crazy cat people designation is reserved for anyone who has over three cats.   We in fact had settled down to a very reasonable two cat and two dog life and although we sometimes hankered for another dog, we never looked at one another and said "What we really need is another cat."

Not that we didn't always have applicants.  Some of the strays that came to check us out were very endearing and we were sympathetic to their plights.  Our sympathy in the past was where we arrived at the two cats we currently owned.  They both arrived as strays.  We loved them and cared for them but my husband expressed a desire to no longer have cats when the life expectancy, which could be up to twenty years, on our current two ran its course.  He was not in any hurry but he felt he had reached his threshold of catness.  He was over cats and would like to in good time just become a dog person.  "Cat's lead such tragic lives," he often mused as he would watch the plight of another stray.  There were always strays in our neighborhood.

This was what made it a little unusual when he drew my attention to a cat that had been lurking around.  "Have you seen him?" he asked me and I said no.  "I think he is an albino.  I am going to call him Bino," he said. "Oookaay," I said wondering what was happening in my husband's brain.  This was going to be interesting.

Bino

For several weeks all I saw of the mysterious Bino was a disappearing tail as I would pull into the driveway.  My husband denied feeding Bino.  "Of course not.  I don't want another cat," he said.  In spite of this Bino came around every day.  I eventually saw Bino and although he was not completely white he was a very pale cream color with a white chest.  Bino's eyes were very large and had the look of siamese heritage.  My kitty radar was letting me know something else.  I have always been able to know the sex of a cat just from seeing it.  It isn't something I consciously think about, I just know.  There must be some physical characteristics I am picking up but the kitty radar is foolproof.  Kitty radar said Bino was no boy.

This was confirmed the next week when my husband said a mother cat had appeared with two kittens.  Two starving kittens.  He had put out food for them immediately because, well because that is what you have to do even if you are 'over' cats.  I said, "Do you think it is Bino?"  He said "No.  Bino is a boy."  The next day I saw for myself.  It was Bino and she did indeed have two starving kittens in tow.  The kittens were tiny and nearly skeletal, especially the smallest one.  We immediately set up a feeding station with food and water just outside one of our windows.  We watched as Bino and her children ate but we had to be extra quiet.  They would startle at the slightest sound.  Those kittens were as wild as they come.  I was very worried our help would not be in time for the smallest kitten.  It was half the size of its sibling and very bony.  We made sure food and water were available constantly and also put out wet food to try and save the tiny one.

Beener and Beenie

It worked and they began to thrive.   It became apparent to me that at one time in her life, Bino had a home, but she was almost completely feral now.  Although she would tolerate our presence after a while, she would not let us touch her.  Her kittens, a male, a bright orange tabby we named Beener and a female, a solid sand colored we named Beenie, eventually let us touch them if they were eating.  Gradually they were getting used to us, but then we noticed that Bino was looking, well...  it was very apparent she was pregnant again.  Great.  We were at at loss as to what to do about it.  The kittens were still at a stage where they stayed with her constantly even though they did not nurse.  If we trapped her to take her in to be spayed we might lose her kittens.   Then we got distracted due to an impending natural disaster.

That disaster was hurricane Ike.  It started out as a tropical storm on September 1st and by September 4th was a category 4 hurricane.  Ike hit Cuba hard on September 7th and was into the Gulf of Mexico by September 9th.  The projected pathway showed it heading right towards us and the predictions were for huge storm surge that could potentially wipe our home out.  They called for mandatory evacuations of our neighborhood by the 12th.  We grabbed a few essentials and headed towards my father's home to ride out the storm.  Of our most precious things we had with us our dogs and our two cats, but Bino and the tiny Beenie were no where to be found.  On the last trip to the house my husband said he found the male, Beener, who was the friendliest of the trio.  He nearly had him in hand when a huge gust of wind blasted the house and Beener ran off.  We were heartbroken that we could not take them with us and expected the worst with the predictions.

Hurricane Ike

The hurricane had tremendously powerful winds which tore up quite a bit of the city, so much so that we lost power at my father's house.  In the morning the city was in shambles and most streets were unpassable.  We did not get back to our home for two days and when we finally made it there having backtracked multiple times around downed trees, utility poles and debris we came upon something we had not expected.  Our house was fine.  Aside from a tree that had crushed a back fence there was minimal damage.  There was also no evidence of any water.  The storm surge had not occurred.

When we got out of our car little Beener came running up to us crying and eager to greet us.  His tiny sister also appeared and we quickly gave them food and water.  Mama Bino appeared later.  A very slim Bino. She had given birth to her kittens during the storm.   That week due to lack of power we stayed at my father's and came by the house every couple of days.  Things came back to normal two weeks after the storm when our power was finally restored and we resumed our life.

Beener becomes Ike

My husband was now permanently bonded with Beener since that fateful day of the failed rescue.  He renamed him Ike in honor of the storm.  I decided since apparently we were now the proud owners of this new crew of cats to rename little Beenie to Sandy because of her solid sandy colored hair.  Bino remained Bino.  She also remained elusive.  Her new batch of kittens seemed to be located under our neighbors house.  We felt in time she would bring them out to the feeding station we had set up and we were certain we would be able to quickly domesticate her newest litter and find homes for them.

Beenie becomes Sandy

Weeks went by and Bino kept her kittens to herself.  Finally one day my husband said he saw one little kitten.  He said it almost seemed to glow in the light.  Day after day there was an elusive sighting of just one kitten.  So we thought she had a litter of one.  Then came the day we saw two kittens.  Okay, we said she had a litter of two, just like her first litter.  They were very skittish and we could not get close to them.  A couple of weeks went by and then magically there were suddenly three kittens.  Just how many did she actually have?

How many kittens?

Three kittens.

It turns out there were only three.  One was a bright orange tabby just like Ike.  One was solid white with gray ears like a siamese.  One was just like her mother, white chested and pale cream tabby body.  So now we had our two backdoor cats and six front door cats. Eight cats - definitely crazy cat people territory.

We started trying to find homes for our abundance of cats.  The thing is, nobody wants cats.  Oh, they might like kittens, but they don't want barely domesticated kittens.  If you say to someone, "How about a nice cat.  She is almost tame and she will probably use a litter box and she hardly every freaks out when she comes inside," they do not seem overly interested.  The thing is there is a glut of cats on the adoption market.  Many of those cats have fine qualities that would make them perfect indoor companions.  For slightly feral, past the cute kitten stage and in the awkward juvenile stage there are far fewer willing adopters.  We were able to re-home exactly one of the kittens.

Cat math equation.

So you would think this would mean that we now had only five front door cats.  No.  Cat math does not work that way.  Once you are feeding several cats, other cats join the group.  Suddenly we had an adult manx cat join our crew and he was such a goofy and inept cat we let him stick around.  We had many other candidates as well, especially tom cats who began to pester our females.

The goofy manx.

I took quick action on this and one by one took Bino's kittens in to be fixed.  Bino however remained very elusive and eventually disappeared never to return.  Then the manx who was never very hearty took a bad turn and we had him euthanized by the vet to end his suffering.  So we went back up to six front door cats and then down to four which is thankfully where we remain today.

Some people may criticize us because we do not give these cats an indoor home, but in fact they do have an indoor home.  We took our front porch, which used to be just a two columned open area and enclosed the walls.  We created special cat flaps and also made special kitty furniture for them.  They have heated sleeping nooks, shelves to sit on and a raised floor.  This summer we will install a fan and who knows, if my husband has anything to say about it they will probably get their own air conditioner as well.  See, crazy cat person symptoms.

Currently due to one of our back door cats reaching the end of a very long life we are at five cats total - two cats above the crazy cat person quota.  Break a mirror and you only get seven years of bad luck.  Adopt four kittens and you get twenty years of crazy cat person luck.  Great.