A Happy Ending

Some of you may recall the tale of this handsome little fellow from Facebook; a local, unaltered male stray who had decided to take up residence with us. To make a very, very long story short, the Humane Society contacted us and said that the supposed owners who had reported a similar cat missing hadn't answered any of their calls, and that, legally, after ten days, the cat was now ours.




Then came the tricky part; catching him. Trying to put him into a crate previously had resulted in several bites on my right hand, as well as scratches all over my chest and neck. I'd rented a humane, live-animal trap two weeks previously, but no matter how much I refused him his usual meal on the porch in place of setting it inside the trap (and feeling awful to do it), our Maine Coon simply refused to enter, for dry food, wet food, or even tuna fish. Even Roy, equipped with cat toys, treats, and a hefty pair of utility gloves to avoid bites, was unable to catch him after several attempts (although he did run off with a toy mouse!)

Yesterday, over a week after getting the all-clear from the Humane Society, I used tuna juice to create a trail leading into the trap. The poor guy was so ravenous that he was eating the strands of grass that the tuna had touched, but still refused to enter. My rental time for the trap was up, and I had given up; we were just going to have to deal with him and hope that, in the months that followed, our cats would stop fighting with him and eventually the amount of vet bills for draining abscesses (and for subsequent antibiotics) would dwindle as well (during fights, the stray is a biter!). I walked around the house to get the hose to clean the tuna-covered trigger, came back around the house... and there he was. Inside the now-locked trap, glaring at me.



It was like Christmas. I quickly called the couple who'd wanted him; they weren't home at the time, but said to go ahead and drop him off in the barn. Initially I was nervous; I honestly didn't know much about the couple, and for a long time I worried that I may be leaving him in a worse situation than he'd been in with us. Once we arrived, we headed toward the open barn. I opened the trap and he slowly came out, curious. A well-fed female calico ran out from under a tractor and began twirling around Roy's legs, purring happily. She saw the stray and purred even louder, eager to say hello. Despite the thousands of places for him to hide, rather than dashing off the moment he was free, the stray sat down quietly and looked around, almost as if thinking, "Well, this is actually sort of nice."

Seeing him sitting there in the barn with the obviously well-looked-after calico, and looking at the sheer amount of space he had to roam, I felt a lot better as I drove off and left him behind. Roy and I both agreed that we'll sort of miss him... but our own cats will sure be happy!