Four Cats Who Need a Home

UPDATE: I got the three cats in the image below to the Hopkins County Humane Society. The fourth, LittleKitty, was last seen on Friday in another yard, headed into the woods. I baited a crate with catnip, then milk and soft food, but she/he was long gone, or maybe another neighbor took LittleKitty in. If she reappears, we will try to sweet-talk her into the crate and get her to safety, too.

Thanks for touching base regarding Operation Abandoned Cat Rescue. Take good care of yourself and your pets. If you see an animal in need, please report it. xo

Three of the four cats were abandoned after their owners abruptly moved over the weekend. The black one is just emerging from the house's crawlspace where they’ve been living. I fed them milk and dog kibble with sardines.

When a new family moved into the house on the corner in late fall, I held out hope. This house on the corner has flipped residents five times in fourteen years. I’m beginning to think it's haunted, and I don’t say this lightly. Most of the residents in our thirty-plus home neighborhood are decades-long homeowners. This is the only rental house. We are polite, waver from our cars or a nod, and friendly chit-chat when walking, which I do twice daily with Cooper. We mostly keep to ourselves with enough lawn and land to maintain privacy. Still, crime abounds no matter where you live, so I'm the neighbor who installed Neighborhood Watch signs. I like to know who's in my hood.

The new neighbors in the rental were quiet, and aside from seeing kittens in the unfenced front yard, I rarely saw them. One day, on a neighborhood stroll with Cooper, a St. Bernard was chained to their backyard tree. It was not a long lead, but it was close to the trunk. I was furious and wanted to knock on the door, but I knew better. The next day, there was no dog. In its place, a large, but not big enough, empty, upside crate. Another neighbor, closer to the house, had told them our HOA doesn't allow big dogs, which is a dubious claim. Still, at least the people found a new home for the dog, or so they told me on the day I stood in their front yard to find out what kind of people they really were, even though the dog chained to the tree told me plenty. Now, I wanted to know more. A man in his early forties, a woman, maybe in her early thirties, a young child, and an older man who sat on the front porch, smoking in one of those chairs that doubles as a walker. The woman was a twin, the man, her husband? made a big deal of that with a smile. Maybe kink? Who knows. He works in construction. The little boy, 5, was interested, shy, and smiling. The Cats (kittens then) were running around the yard, playful but wary.

Cooper was on high alert since his history with neighbor cats is not great (I wrote about that here). I mentioned they must watch the kittens as other neighbors speed in the hood. I asked about the dog. He mentioned the convo with the neighbor, said, “My friend in the sheriff's dept took my dog,” and added, “We bought.” My spidey sense mirrored Cooper, but I didn't know why. They seemed “normal.” The girl/woman showed me pictures of the paint job on the inside — forest green in a bedroom, neutral elsewhere. He said, “The kitchen needs so much work, and I wouldn’t have bought it, but she insisted and wanted to be here.” Um, okay. I left, still unsure about these neighbors, afraid for the child and cats. We exchanged names, but I forgot, leaving their yard to finish my walk. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. It’s how I was raised, but it’s hard to maintain trust when you see blatant wrong-doings. Now, I wish I’d committed their names to memory.

Am I surprised they abandoned four cats? Yes and no.

One of the cats, I call Callie. You see, I’ve already named them: Mr. Tuxedo is the black one with a white triangle chest who likes to hang out in my woods near the bird feeder. (I am not happy about that.) Callie is the calico, the striped gray (not in the pic) is LittleKitty, and then, White Cat. I can’t take them because of Cooper. Otherwise, we would take all four. I’ve been feeding them — milk and dog kibble mixed with sardines.

The world is a hot mess. There are more significant, worse injustices in this world, but I believe people who treat animals poorly are a special kind of mean and ignorant. I can’t do anything about them; I can only do what I can. And today, that means trying to get the cats to a better place. Today, we will try to crate and take them to the Humane Society.

It turns out the people did not buy the house, according to the neighbor who threatened them with the HOA law and is now also tight-lipped about them. Maybe I, too, am tightlipped for not calling animal control on the people when I saw the chained dog. I’m not shy about calling the police when I see something. I’ve called on the previous neighbors (same house) about their abuse of dogs in the backyard. I called the police on a neighbor who trespassed on my property and threatened me verbally from his vehicle (same house). The police know me well enough. I served on the CPA —Citizen Police Academy while looking for “tricks of the trade” for a detective novel I wrote when I first moved here. But that day, the day I saw St. Bernard chained to the tree, maybe my anguish swelled my sense of right and stopped me from calling. I don’t know. I don’t know why I did not call the woman who hung Neighborhood Watch signs and told everyone, if you see something, say something.

Except for the cats in the crawlspace, the walker chair by the front door, and a beaten-down stadium chair on the back porch, its cupholder filled with cigarette butts, bloated with water, the house sits empty. Eventually, there will be new people. I hope they don’t bring pets they can’t manage.

The Humane Society has loaned us a cat crate to get the cats to safety and, hopefully, a new home. Send me luck. This might be a two-cup-of-coffee kind of day.

M xo