I'm Reconnecting

I have had to let up on writing my blogs for the past month or so. I’m sorry about that. I was hurting more deeply than I realized because I just couldn’t bring myself to write much of anything. But after my personable, sweet feral/hoarded/barn kitty, disappeared I found way too many other things to do. (anger) Polka Dot had become even friendlier with me than my house cats, and I couldn’t believe I had let this happen.

Each day for a couple of weeks I called for her but I didn’t have much hope. What made it even harder was the weather turned cold, very cold. I just couldn’t accept her being out in it. The only way I could think of her was if I convinced myself she had found a buddy and was in another barn or even a house where she might have been fed and had a warm place. (denial) I knew that since she was feral and we had recently sighted a red fox, it was a long shot.

The only thing that made me feel better during that time was my house cats. I held Taffy-ta, my big furry orange tabby for a long time. She put up with my hugging a little longer than usual before she struggled to get down. And about this time, my shy, beautiful tortie, Cookie, was beginning to climb up on my lap as if she knew it was the right time to do that. Even moody, unpredictable black and white Lily, my Tuxedo kitty spent more time on my lap than usual, looking steadily into my eyes as if saying, “It’s going to be OK Mom, I’m here” (acceptance) I’d never thought about the power of touch in this way but it’s thanks to my kitties I made it through those first few weeks.

Since Polka Dot disappeared lots of things have happened. I have some more cat stories coming up as well as a horse and dog story. Don’t miss “Mookie Moves In”, next. My goal is to write a post every other week. Welcome back.

Follow the Dots

Of the three rescued cats I brought to my barn that early fall day, you would notice Polka Dot first. Her abundance of long luxurious fur made her look fat, which she wasn’t, and reminded me of Garfield the cat's famous comment,
“I’m not fat! I’m fluffy!”

(The picture shows her in her summer coat)
She also wore a tuxedo. In cat circles this means black covers most of her body with a white tummy, chest or chin, and usually four white paws. The white area on the face and neck is a variety of shapes and sizes. For Polka Dot these markings were startling. She had 3 white dots,

one on either side of her nose and one on the tip of her nose. Polka Dot had well... polka dots. Three of them.
For a large fluffy cat, Polka Dot had a small meow. But one night that tiny meow was enough. It was later in the winter, after we had moved them into a warm empty stall protected with stacks of hay.
Along the way she had a few more adventures than Lollipop. Lollipop was the shy one who spent most of her time curled up under the table and even Moonbeam, the one eyed wonder who was bold but still careful. Polka Dot seemed to be braver or maybe the more feral one. She was bound and determined to show me how adventurous she could be.
Somehow one day Polka Dot found her way to the rafters in the storage room. It was not too unusual because all the junk that was piled up from floor to ceiling allowed a curious, determined or frightened kitten to make it to the ledge without much trouble. When I got there to feed them I couldn’t figure out where she was. My heart sank. I had them for only a week and I was afraid if they got out they would not survive in a strange place, compromised as they were from their recent spay or neuter surgeries.
Frantically I pushed boxes and junk out of the way, looked under things, even behind the old stuffed chair, but it seemed hopeless. Then finally I spotted her high above me. My breath caught as her tail disappeared through a previously unnoticed hole in the wall. She had found a small space large enough to wiggle through.
I yelled to my husband, “Quick, bring a ladder! Polka Dot is getting out!” Luckily he got there in time and used another piece of wood to gently push her back in, backwards. There she sat eight feet up on a narrow ledge, tilting and unsteady, looking just as scared as I had been a few minutes before.
But that was not the end. I had to get her down. I carefully found a foothold on the table that sat against the wall and stood up on it but I was barely able to reach her. Have you ever tried to grab a scared feral cat! ? I spotted a fishnet hanging nearby on the wall. My son-in-law had hung it there when he moved his fishing stuff into storage. I grabbed it and began to move it slowly toward her. Finally I wedged the frame against the wall circled around her while she sat on the ledge surrounded by the net.
Then, suddenly, without warning, plop, she slipped down into it while I tried to hold on to the handle with one hand. When she felt herself falling she became a whirling dervish flinging her tail and legs and paws everywhere. At that point I began to lose my balance dropped the net to avoid being shredded by cat claws. When it landed on the table she sprang out. With a sideways glare she disappeared back under the table. She took it all in stride as cats do but I was still shaking an hour later.
Another time I arrived with their food and again no Polka Dot to be found. As I tossed things out of the way I mumbled to myself,
“I thought I had plugged all the rest of the holes.” Then I noticed a strange thing, the patio umbrella propped upside down in the corner moved. When I peeked in I saw a small black furry ball wedged down between the ribs, stuck tight with three white dots showing in the darkness. I decided it would not be wise to stick my hand down into it. I picked up the whole umbrella carefully and slowly turned it right side up. Sure enough, she came sliding out and as soon as her little feet hit the ground off she flew, this time under the old stuffed chair sitting in the corner, just a little bit ruffled.
“That was number two” I told her.
It was November and the first big snowfall of the year was in progress. I didn't see her in the barn…again. By now I had moved them out of the small storage room into an empty stall where we stored hay and where I had assembled a small cat shelter. I called it their ‘warm house’. The cats were out during the day but came home for their dinner in the evening.
I got my best-lost-cat-tool flashlight out and walked through deepening snow around the house, barn and arena and toward my neighbor’s property. And then I heard it, a small meow. I shined the flashlight toward the gate and saw a little black kitty face with three white dots poking up above the snow drift. The mouth moved, barely making a sound, but it had been enough.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to pick her up. She would not allow herself to be touched for six more months.
I had left my footprints in the snow behind me as I walked. When she saw me she tentatively put her paw out but she still fell through the drift. By now it was getting really cold and darker. So I called her by name. She could have known her name by then because I talked to her all the time using it. Names are important. When you have been named it is like you exist.
When she heard my encouraging voice and her name she jumped out into the first close by footprint, as I backed up she jumped to the next footprint, following the ‘dots’. She jumped along following me like the proverbial bouncing ball, footprint to footprint all the way to the barn where warmth and her dinner ware waiting. She looked like a little fuzzy black fur ball bouncing along behind me.
I called their names each night when I brought them dinner but I still wasn’t sure if they would come. And because she had learned to trust me she rescued herself that night.

Polka Dot

Rescued August 31, 2009 - Disappeared November 13, 2010

I miss your sweet spirit terribly.

Lily-Lou:Who's on First

There is no question about who is on first at my house. Lily has seniority as well as the personality to make sure everyone knows it clearly. It is kind of surprising because she spent most of the first years of her life under a bed. Not even counting the fact that I rescued her and her twin sister Calla from under a bush.
So what I want to tell you about Lily is that she has changed. She is the one in charge but even more amazing is that she has become a lap cat. She finds my lap wherever it is, on a chair in front of a computer, on the sofa in front of the T.V., on my bed while reading. Even as I try to savor my coffee before getting started on my daily activities, she helps me dawdle for a few more minutes.
I rescued Lily with her twin sister Calla from under a bush in Northglen when I kept my horse, Teddy Bear, at a boarding stable. I had to drag them out.They had been born in the barn but their feral mom moved them under the bush after she had been disturbed somehow.
Calla and Lily were sisters in behavior as well as looks. They both exhibited feral behavior for a long time, running from everyone except me. The best thing I did when I first got them was sleep with them. I put them under the covers with me, one in front of my knees and one behind and they slept that way for at least the first week or two. To this day Lily finds her way under the covers most every night. When she jumps up I feel the bed shake, then a ‘paw, paw, paw’ while she tries to pull the covers open so she can slide in and curl up. She is not there in the morning so I don’t know how long she actually puts up with my tossing and turning but she always starts out there.
Their history included relentless running and hiding under my bed when anyone else came near, sitting on my lap (when they were small enough) to watch the mouse (on the computer), their tails and heads moving in tandem, curling their tails around each other as I got their food ready, taking their time welcoming me home when I was gone on a trip, ignoring me for at least a day when I returned. As they got older Calla became a door dasher. Lily never did. Then one day after we moved Calla slipped out and never came back. It took Lily a long time to get over it. She spent most of her time the following months grieving under the bed.
Later, after we had been in our current house for a while two kittens came to be our barn cats. But since they came at the end of November I brought them into the house to keep them warm at night. Somehow they just became house cats instead. I though that adding the two adopted barn cats to the house would be something she would like. But I was wrong, even after a week of meeting them under the doors she was not ready to welcome anybody else into her private domain.
As time went by and the kittens grew even bigger than she was she continued to hiss and growl and even chase them, especially if one of them found their way to the bed. For a long time it was like they didn’t know they were bigger than Lily.
As they say, time heals and they all had to interact.They started getting used to each other. One of the barn cats, Taffy, my big orange tabby got so she was totally not intimidated. In fact, she would lie in the doorway and when Lily went buy, out would go a paw, like “so there! I got ya”
So, Lily she has changed. Now, when I come home after I have been gone a while she welcomes me home, she follows me around the house, meows loudly at me when she wants something, comes when I call her. She likes her new name. I now call her Lily-Lou. It just grew because I named the barn cats Taffy-ta and Cookie dough.
She continues to have a hard time with jealousy. When she takes a swat and hisses at one of the other two cats I clap my hands and say “No!” in a loud voice. I pick up the offended cat to calm them and sometimes put Lily by herself in the bathroom for a while. I know she knows it is not acceptable behavior. I do have to say she has been doing it less and less. One of the other things I have done that has helped is to give her an extra session of petting, using short strokes similar to the way her mother licked her when she was a kitten. You can’t allow an aggressive cat to beat up on other cats. They can learn, but you also can give them more special moments for a while too. That probably helps most.
She is a now a very healthy, elegant 11 year old tuxedo cat. She poses, lies in the sun and is able to ignore Taffy and Cookie most of the time. For a long time when she jumped up on my lap she would raise her tail toward me and lie down. I started turning her around, looked in her eyes and told her I wanted to see her pretty face. She now lies down facing me. Sometimes when I am working on my computer with her on my lap I’ll look down at her and see that she is actually gazing at me with a look of total adoration. And I know she is happy.

Taffy-Ta

Taffy knows who she is. When you see her golden face and eyes surrounded by substantial ruff of soft orange fur you know who she is too; likely descended from the legendary big cats in Africa. Her name, Taffy-Ta denotes her softer side, but her more recent name Tuffy Taffy describes her other side. Because of her early kitten experiences she does not hesitate to use her claws once in a while. Most of the time it has to do with getting her way, more petting, another treat…you know the type. She has long fur but not so that it gets in her way. Her’s is the sort that doesn’t shed. I found out very early on she does not like to be brushed with a shedding brush. I almost always have several little curved claw marks on the back of my hands. She only will tolerate the soft wire brush. Okey Dokey.
She ‘s my conversationalist. Letting me know when she is hungry, upset, scared, wanting some water in her food dish or even some petting. She is not a snuggler, not yet, but she is the one who comes in the house each afternoon for her nap without being coaxed, and then finds the most comfortable chair in the living room after dinner while we read or watch T.V. Her purr sometimes sounds like a croak. Every once in a while I wonder if she has a cat upper respitary thing. She has grown the biggest of my three house cats but she really is a bit of a marshmallow. In the morning she will run around the bed till she is sure Lily, the boss has jumped down. Then if she can she crouches in the shadow and takes a swipe as Lily goes by. She never backs down when Lily hisses at her, she just lays there ignoring her. Ho hum. She gets her morning moments with Mom pretty early, letting me know when the sun is about to come up over the horizon.
Of the three cats she is the one who spends most time in the enclosed outdoor cat yard, mostly at night, catching moths and flies, depending on the season. I hear the click-clack of the cat door in the middle of the night and I know she is in for a while. When she is outside (supervised) she is one busy cat. The other day when she was out in our yard guarding it so that our barn cats could not come into her domain, she flew off the fence where she had been balancing. She was determined to chase Polka Dot out of her yard. Polka Dot had strayed past some unknown boundary known only to Taffy-Ta. She disappeared for a while and I noticed later she was peeking out behind some of the tall grass by the fence, just waiting to pounce, her favorite game.
Lately I’ve tried to entice her to become more of a lap cat by a bit of nose (hers) to finger(mine) touches rewarded by a scrumptious dehydrated chicken strip. It seems to be beginning to work. I got close enough to doctor an abscess that had appeared on her tail the other day. She even has become one of the winners in the nightly, “who gets to sleep with Mom” contest that is played out between her, her sister Cookie-dough and the ‘boss cat’ Lily Lou. Sigh, I hope someday they can all get along.

A Warm Homecoming

This is the fall season, the season of cool nights that are harbingers of colder nights to come. We welcome all those energetic activities that surround the big homecoming celebrations around the country. It is all a reminder that there are things to do to get ready for the chill.
I just returned from an out of town trip and received a different kind of homecoming; it was more of a welcome back. My two black and white barn cats, Polka Dot and Moonbeam were the welcoming committee. But talk about energy. Once they caught sight of me walking through the barn door as it got light the other morning, I have never seen such a flurry of rubbing, rolling on the ground happiness, punctuated by quiet little meows of appreciation. Believe it or not, a year ago these two were hiding as far away as they could possibly get in a storage room of my barn. They had just been rescued by the Fort Collins Friends of Ferals from a home where they had been hoarded. They were scared, undernourished and sickly.
Believe it or not these two friendly, ecstatic cats had started out their lives as feral cats.
So today I want to honor National Feral Cat day, October 16th by letting people know that you never know what a little compassion can do. I decided to keep these cats to see if they might be able to be socialized. It has taken a year but I have to say that out of the large number of cats I have been happy to share my life with, these two have the top rating. They are smart, friendly, energetic, respectful, polite and most of all loving. At suppertime, If they are not waiting under my kitchen window all I have to do is call them:
“ Pokey “, I yell, ”Mookie, come for supper” and almost every time they emerge from somewhere, the fields nearby, the neighbor’s barn or bushes near our house and they come running, slowing down to be petted and most recently to be picked up and carried a few steps to the barn where they will be fed. They are adorable.
Since they have grown, the winter shelter I have for them to snuggle up in is now too small. This fall I have been trying to set up a ‘warming house’ for them that will sit inside the barn in one of the empty stalls so they will be warm during the below zero temperatures that are always a part of the winter weather here in northern Colorado. Thank goodness Ally Cat Allies has a wonderful website that gives all kinds of ideas and instructions about how to provide for feral cats in cold weather.
So homecoming also means colder nights are ahead for the cats. The warming house I am putting together is different than the ones that are used outside. It will not be in the weather but it still needs to be warm enough for them even though it is in the barn. I have a large (about 20’X30”) heavy plastic storage container with a lid. It needed to be big enough for the two cats plus the insulation. I like the idea of a lid so I can take it off once in a while to clean the inside and be sure it stays dry. I ended up insulating it with 1” thick soft styrofoam (used in pillows, etc.) laid inside around the sides, top and bottom, secured with duct tape. Then I cut pieces of a heavy plastic sheet to lay over the styrofoam and taped it down with duct tape too so the cats won’t (accidently?) shred the Styrofoam.
I am going to drill a hole in the end so I can string the cord from a heating pad (for pets) inside the box if needed. But best of all I am placing an old comforter inside for them to curl up in. I have cut a 6” door and will tape a flap over it but it won’t have to deal with wind or anything like that. So that is it. I’m hoping to have it done by this weekend in plenty of time before snow flies.
So in honor of National Feral Cat day I offer this idea for an inside barn warming house for any feral cats that might be using a barn this winter.

Moonbeam's Adventure

At the end of May it had been nine months since I began caring for three rescued cats for the Fort Collins Friends of Ferals. Things had changed a lot. Two of them were still with me. Each time I allowed the cats more freedom I anxiously awaited the results. Trust has always been a big issue with me and I have to admit I had a hard time letting go.
Days were getting longer and nights shorter. And it was also getting warm enough that they didn’t need to remain in the tack room of our barn where I had decided to keep them at night when it was wintry cold so they would be warm enough. My daughter had recently helped me assemble the enclosure I had picked up from another cat rescue group that didn’t need it anymore. It was about six feet high and wide and about 3 feet deep. There was room for a climbing tower and a shelter where the cats could sleep and keep warm enough during the late spring nights. They both still were small enough to fit inside the cozy little cave.
They both had gotten used to the night-time feeding schedule and were meeting me by the back yard fence around the house. They were still shy about coming close to the house. Then they would run toward the barn, stopping now and then to roll begging for a scratch behind the ears or to rub on my ankles. I was delighted that they had gotten so friendly.
But Moonbeam (I call her Mookie now, easier to say) had begun to lollygag! She would play little games and act as if she was not really interested in dinner after all. Her sister, Polka Dot (now called Pokey) allowed me to pick her up and pet her from time to time and I could get her into the enclosure but Moonbeam was still skittish about it. I had hoped to be able to pick her up.
At dinner time one night Mookie was lounging nearer the house than she had before and she seemed to have no inclination to head to the barn. I decided to go on into the house to prepare the family dinner when I noticed she was sitting outside my kitchen window, looking up and meowing. It was a quiet meow at first but soon it became more and more insistent. A little later I heard her again but this time I found her balancing on the fence near my bedroom window. My house cat, Taffy was sitting inside on the window perch checking this brash new intruder out. Since my family was still in the middle of dinner I decided to leave her there and see if she would go to the barn after a while by herself.
When I finally got outside to check she was nowhere to be found. Not near the house or even in the barn. Pokey had eaten her dinner and was settled in the enclosure but not Mookie. I had to trust that she would show up the next morning. Putting my worries aside I went to bed. About midnight a strange noise woke me up. As my eyes opened I realized it was an insistent meow coming from outside my window. When I looked outside I didn’t see her but after shining my flashlight around the yard I caught site of her, halfway up a large tree. And sitting on the ground beneath the tree was the aggressive cat that belonged to the neighbors. So I grabbed my slippers, a robe and my flashlight and headed out the door. Neighbor cat skedaddled home. Mookie didn’t move an inch. By now I decided I wasn’t going to wait up for her.
But sleep was not for me this night, later I again was awakened to a now familiar sound. Plugging my ears didn’t work. I was resigned to another trip outside. But this time with no encouragement needed I got her to follow me back to the barn.
When she scampered into the barn she greeted Polka Dot, touching noses and hungrily gobbled her food, turned around, told Pokey she would tell her about her adventures tomorrow, curled into a ball and went to sleep. It was something I was looking forward to as well. I was just glad she was safely home.

An Anniversary

It has been a year since I adopted Polka Dot and Moonbeam. After Lollipop disappeared right after I moved them from the small storage room out into the barn I didn’t know if this day would ever come. But it has. These two cats that had such a difficult and scary beginning have been transformed. I’d have to look back in my notes to get an exact idea when the trials and tribulations came and there were some. But thay made it through and so did I. But you would never know that they were rescued from a hoarder or that they were feral except if you were someone other than me and you tried to pick them up. They don't run away and hide when people approach them anymore. Moonbeam’s eye never recovered its sight. But moonbeam can’t tell. She has not grown too big. She remains the smaller of the two. And although not always the first to make breakthroughs in personality and loss of her fearfulness, she always made the leap of faith with energy and determination eventually. By early summer both Moonbeam and Polka Dot started hanging around the house. In fact one night Moonbeam kept me awake by meowing at my window till I had to get up to entice her into her enclosure in the barn. By September most late afternoons they were sitting outside the kitchen window waiting for feeding time. As I carried their food out to the barn all I had to do was say their names and their tails stood straight up with the little hooks on the end. It made me laugh out loud, it was such joyful behavior. They would stop once in a while and roll around, looking for that extra pat on the head or tummy. Polka Dot was the most demonstrative. She would wind herself around my feet to almost trip me to get her chance of being picked up to be carried on my hip. Even Moonbeam would drop on her side and reach her paws toward me to get an extra pat. As we would get closer to the barn and their nighttime enclosure (that I close every night so they can’t get out to tangle with the coyotes, hawks or owls nearby) with just a little hesitation to make sure the way was clear they streak inside where I place the dishes. They are happy to be inside their enclosure where they feel safe. I worried for a while about them being inside a small space for the night but they don’t try to run out after they eat. The just jump up to the top of their climbing tower and proceed to clean their faces and lick their paws, and to snuggle up together to rest for the night.

In the morning, on the days I feed the horses, when I open the door to let them out I always get some rubbing on my legs to remind me that I am required to stop and give them their morning petting session