Tuesday, October 16, 2012

National Feral Cat Day: My Personal Experience with Feral Cats


via www.AlleyCat.org
It is National Feral Cat Day today. Alley Cat Allies created the even in 2001. They promote humane care for feral cats and the practice of trap-neuter-return. Remember that feral cats are animals too. Their home is the outdoors and there are lots of ways that people can help them.

I honor of National Feral Cat Day, I think I will write about my experiences with feral cats. I had many cats as a little girl. Now that I really think about it, most of them were feral. I am not sure where exactly they came from.



Hobbes
We found one kitten in our garage when I was very young. We ended up giving it to our grandparents to keep. He was a huge and fluffy kitty! They named him Hobbes and he went on to live for 20 years. Hobbes came to visit sometimes, when the grandparents went out of town. He usually didn't like his stay over at our house.

Baby Snoopy and Garfield
When I was in middle school, we had a long-haired calico feral cat that lived in our barn. She was pretty wild, so we decided to name her "Banshee". Banshee ended up having some kittens under our house. My mother and I crawled under to rescue them, as we could hear them meowing. We rescued two kittens, as the others were dead. We set up a box for Banshee and her 2 remaining kittens, "Garfield" and "Snoopy" in the barn. We ended up keeping them. Banshee became a bit nicer and she would allow us to pet her from time to time. She never became fully tame though.

Kitty Kitty Meow Meow
My most recent cat named "Kitty Kitty Meow Meow" (aka KKMM) came to me as feral cat. Well, I think someone owned her before me because she was very friendly but she was still homeless. I took her in and she lived with me and my family for about 10 years. I guess the "feral" in her never really went away. She preferred to stay in the barn in the summer, and come inside during the winter. She loved to catch and eat wild rabbits no matter how much I scolded her for it. I am not sure how old she was when she came to us. Last month, KKMM passed away due to a nasty mammary tumor.

I have so many more stories of feral cats. I never paid much thought to how many I might have helped in my lifetime. Happy National Feral Cat Day!

2 comments:

  1. thank you for visiting us!
    I loved reading your stories about the kitties that you rescued. I bet those were ferals!
    We are now your newest followers (subscribed via email) and are pleased to meet you!
    Caren & Cody

    ReplyDelete

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