lisaviolet's diary

So, this morning, I get up and let the cats out, check in the crate to make sure Skippy is still with us (he is, he’s found the perch) and go back to bed. Ah, how nice it is to not think I absolutely need to go out and find Skipper to make sure he’s alright before releasing the beasts.

Back to bed I go.

We get up, go for our walk, come home. Brian’s in the kitchen, putting water on to boil for his oatmeal. I look out the window.

What are the cats looking at? Over on the bank, what are they all so interested in? I can’t see this from where I’m standing. I go outside. I look on top of the doghouse at a black cat. It doesn’t recognize me. I don’t recognize it.

NOOOO!!!!! Not ANOTHER one!

I yelled in at Brian. “There’s another cat out here.” He said “no, there can’t be”. Uh, yeah, there is. I start getting the resident cats back in the house. Couldn’t find Daniece anywhere outside, but didn’t see her inside. I finally found her in the garage, hiding behind the storage cupboards. She was traumatized. I picked her up and let her know everything was okay.

Then I blocked the cat door.

We went outside, Brian looked under the pool pump where I’d seen the black cat run. He didn’t see him. He fires up the hose, he’s going to start spraying the grass around the pool. This is an insane idea. This cat has nowhere to go. Brian just “wanted to make sure” there’s really a cat before he messes with opening the gate on the right of the house (it’s in bad shape, ready to fall over and he has it shored up on the outside until he has time to fix it properly). I go back inside the house, grab a flashlight. I took it back down to the pool pump and shine the light under the deck. And on top of the towel Brian put out for Skippy, is a strange black cat.

Brian comes down and I hand him the flashlight. “Look for yourself.” He does. “Are you sure this isn’t one of ours?” I’m just shaking my head. I ask him to tell me who it looks like (forget that I’ve already done the head count in the house and all black cats have been counted). “Well, the neck seems kind of big for any of ours…” And that would be because this is another unneutered male.

Brian starts swearing. He’s not happy. Because he’s torn. He really would rather not release this cat back to outside the yard, but realistically, we just are at capacity. Setting out the trap would mean keeping the cats in until he’s trapped and who knows how long that will take? I’m tired. I’m sapped because of Skippy. I just don’t have the energy to do this again so soon. Brian, looking at the cat, says quietly to himself “but I don’t eat very much….” I know his heart is hurting.

Opening the gates is the only option at this point. The gates get opened. Brian tried to scare the cat from under the pump by jumping on the wood overhead. No luck. Very apologetically, he got out the hose. “I’m so sorry I have to do this, I’m just so very, very sorry” and he squirts in the direction of the cat. The cat runs out. Over to the side of the yard by the shop. Then up the bank. He tries to escape through the fence at the top corner. It’s not working. We try to get him to go out of the gate. He runs down from the bank, over to the other side of the house and out the gate there.

Whew. I just don’t understand this. It’s usually years between cats getting into the yard and now we’ve had two in two weeks? What’s up with that?

*sigh*

I’ve got a headache.

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Friday, March 06, 2009