PO'd Kitty

Two Thursday’s ago I caught a feral cat that was slinking around the chicken / goat area.  Ended up putting him in the garage in a large dog crate with some water, food, litter box & a bunch of fluffy towels.  I really don’t know if it was a he or she, but I’ll just call it a “him”.  I was hoping to gentle him up a bit but even after a week of trying, it was still just crazy.  I finally decided to move him to the barn so he’d have more room & so I could sit in there in hopes of getting the cat used to me.  I cleaned out one of the enclosed pens and put food, water, litter & a fluffy cat bed in there.  I donned welding gloves & DH’s Carhart jacket & went in the dog crate to relocate kitty to it’s new home.  That did NOT go well.  After getting bit (even through the welding gloves) & a small scratch on the face, a LOT of hissing / growling / howling and much fuss, I finally transferred the franticly ferocious feline to the barn stall.  I’ve never seen a cat go crazy like that; jumping around & climbing up the wire windows.  I left for a while to find him up in the rafters, gazing at me with eyes that said “I totally, totally hate your guts”.  Evening came & I fed the goats, put the chickens away & said goodnight to the cat.   

I went to milk the goats & let the chickens out yesterday morning & to check on insane-cat.  He had finished off an entire bowl of cat chow, pooped in the litter box, shredded up his blanket…..and was gone.  There was a loose section of chicken wire at the top of the enclosure & he had managed to squeeze through it to freedom. 

I’m a bit upset.  But mostly at myself.  I should have known after the botched cat-transfer that this cat was not going to, nor probably ever wanted to be tamed in the least bit (yes Paul, you were right, you’re always right, ok, now let it go).  I’ve made friends of dozens of “feral” cats in my suburban life, so this was a first at not being able to get a cat to warm up to me.  I have to remind myself that there are countless numbers of wild cats running around.  And not all of them want to have humans for companions or even close neighbors.  I’m sure that most of them are perfectly happy with what the forest provides for them and are able to have a wonderful life without me providing them with cat chow shaped like little fish and catnip-filled fake mice. 

I’m not sure what I’ll do if I find him wandering around here again; guess I’ll just deal with it then.  In the meantime, all I can say is, “Good luck to you, Mr. Insane-Cat.  And I’m sorry for pissing you off.”