What is she on about now?

Nothing really changes, does it? No, it gets worse...…..

For those who have been paying attention, I have had numerous problems with cats, black cats, missing cats and increasing numbers of cats. Everyone groans after I try to answer their question "How many have you got now?" and if you listen you will hear the horrified anticipation in the question. I groan too because I am genuinely out of any ideas as to how to manage the situation but not out of compassion and affection which has to be ruthlessly suppressed at posts on facebook with a cute kitten the last of his feral litter to be adopted etc etc. And most of it is Patch's fault.

Patch, you may recall, and at this point I really should include a who's who with photos and a family tree, is my original "stray" who got away with sneaking in for food for a while because at a glance she passed for poor little Titch who died in my garage 2 summers ago (fortunately, if you look at it that way, by then I could tell the difference). When she is pregnant she spends a lot of time snoozing on my outdoor chairs and eats for Spain. She then has her kittens in a totally inaccessible ruin where they stay until they are big enough to follow her on their own, which experience tells me is about 3 months old, by which time they are naturally afraid of humans but very pleased to enjoy the facilities (ie food and chairs to sleep on). 

She has been known to leave her kids with me, to wit last autumn/winter Itty Bitty Kitty arrived as a tiny black and white furball who lived under the sideboard for a couple of weeks while her mum (Patch) visited when she pleased and continued to hiss at me. Itty turned out to be Itty, Bitty and Kitty as there were three, and I soon got over my confusion as to whether I'd been had for a mug or paid a compliment being givne care over Itty. 

My ongoing battle with Patch centres around her unwillingness to get in the bloody cat trap for a trip to the vets which would put paid to any more Itty Bitty Kitty nonsense. Enough that Sooty Sweep and Smudge are now only Sweep, with no trace of  Smudge and considerable debate about Sooty given the amount of black cats coming and going round here, let alone another Sooty. This spring I was determined, I can't cope with any more, and much to my delight I succeeded in trapping her middle daughter Sparky, Cheeky bother to Sparky, and Bitty and Kitty. Itty evaded me - I should have known, turned out to be a girl and pregnant, just like her mum. It's not nice but it has to be done in places like this, so trapping efforts continued with Patch. Itty managed to hide her bump until it was too late, but that's a bit of another story so be patient. 

Patch is an old hand at extracting food from a cat trap without triggering it. Her reach extends to that of a giraffe so the plate takes no weight and the door mechanism is not tripped. Her need for food permits her to be tempted to this point this time of taking food from my fingers (with a very hasty snatch and withdraw, mind) and I worked on getting her to go into a cat carrier instead of the trap, waiting with a cushion to wedge he in before shutting the door. The day arrived when I thought I really couldn't leave it much longer, but the strength of that skinny moggy has to be encountered to be believed. She barged her way back out, I grabbed her, the tussle which ensued culminated in me a the health centre for wounds to be dressed, antibiotics administed along with tentanus, and that little bugger hurtling off giving me the evil eye. She had 3 kittens, and yes they come for food - the gorgeous black boys do whilst the brindle girl is as wary as befits her upbringing so here we go again. 

BUT having digressed, I almost forgot to say that my house sitters this summer get gold medals because Yvonne trapped Patch and Patch will neither need to breed again nor savage me in any attempt to prevent anything. I've just got her kids to worry about now. 

Moving on, Itty Bitty Kitty turned out to be three kittens not one, and the two I caught and had neutered were boys. Itty wasn't, and Itty, tiny little thing, had FOUR kittens which showed up with her in a box in the garage just before I went to the UK. So a major apology due to cat sitters, actually there are more than the 20 cats I've warned you about, there are a number of kittens also...…...and in the few days between them arriving and me leaving, the heavens opened, massive storm and torrential rain and the sound of kittens crying. Itty had moved them to under a pile of pallets out the back, and that was not waterproof. I lifted out and brought in 3 little black drowned rats who turned out to be Seamus, Paddy and Blaze, we dried them off and they were bottle fed for the next few days and kept in the massive crate which Oliver (remember 3 paws?) had vacated. Itty wasn't at all keen to come in with them, bad mummy, only there was actually a fourth drowned rat she'd hidden a bit better, and once he was in a few days later, she had to compromise but lets us know she resents us and remains happy to have a hand off any of us should we try anything. ANd I made her a bed and a litter tray and gave her food under my sideboard for a whole 2 weeks last year. Poor Seamus was slow to recover from his sense of betrayal at being left out in the elements, but I have to say when I came back the four of them are happy playful confident little moggitts and whilst this is my best chance at rehoming anyone, they're TAME ffs, I really don't want to part with them because they are so nice. I mean NICE. And a lot more rewarding than their aunties and uncles who want feeding and places to sleep but not to be touched. 

Moving on again, and I want to get this bit over because this is one of things which DEFINITELY hasn't changed...…..and this requires paying attention. I have two black cats, Nelson who was born to the original Sooty at another house, his brother Stumpy was killed in front of my eyes by the goatherd's dogs here, and Sooty who is brother to Ginger and belonged to my neighbour here who died. He arrived a couple of years ago but not until Patch had presented me with her first 3 kittens I ever saw, two black and white and one black (Sooty) - this is the Soooty who disappeared and every black cat or kitten who came since has been considered as a possible identification. There is definitely another blog about all that. There has also been another black tom hanging around for a long time, took up residence in the back yard and sneaked in and out for food - all the black kittens may have something to do with him. Then last summer I came back to be introduced to the next litter of Patch's, no black this time but a black and white and they're nearly as bad as I shall exlain eventually), and a new black fluffy cat called (Hungry) Horace who I'd never seen before but had been assumed to be mine and had been making himself at home the entire time given full credence to that theory. Ok, that gives me Nelson, Sooty (mark 3), and Horace. Not for long because the next kittens to appear thanks to Patch were Itty Bitty and a jet black KItty. Fast forward to this spring and the next batch, two of Patch's are jet black - Bear and Spook, and THREE of Itty's - Seamus, Paddy and Welly. Kitty is not much bigger than any of them, so it's a good job I can sport Nelson, Sooty and Horace in a crowd because there are now 6 little buggers tearing around the place and the only way to have a clue is that 3 are tame, two would consider it especially Bear, and one has a clipped ear because I caught him (they do that to stop people catching the same cats all the time to get them neutered. It's a different form of the snip). The black tom was caught and neutered and has scarcely been seen since so his interest in this place was clearly not unbiased. And to this date I have no idea if I ever saw the Sooty of Sooty, Sweep and Smudge again as there were a few suspect sightings. 

So that ought to be a kind of end to the black cat saga, because I should be thinking about another home for the tame 3 and working on Bear and Spook, but they are rather fun and not a lot of trouble...……….and soon old enough to be neutered, which will be easy with the tame four and hard with the other two boys and damned near impossible with the little brindle daughter of Patch who already takes after her mother in attitude as well as looks.

But nothing is ever that simple is it? Let's talk about black and white cats instead. I have one, Susie, who came from the UK, simple. No. Because Patch had two, and Sweep is still around although poor Smudge disappeared a year ago. The next litter included Wonkey (moustache, she has an offcentre black patch on her nose) who is rarely seen and apparently has some sort of home elsewhere - although she was pretty round and coming for extra food same time as her mum and younger sister, but what happens to her kittens I know not as I haven't seen any, or indeed her for a long time - last autum Itty and Bitty added to the black and white brigade, and Itty has one black and white kitten. I might add that Butch who is Patch's husband more or less is a big battered black and white tom who is even more adept at taking food from a trap without triggering it so we can expect more black and white kittens somewhere around no doubt. 

Why have I chosen to write this today? The internet day began with a message from a friend about a post on the local FB site about a black and white cat dead on the road very near me. A lot of stress later and a fruitless search of the area, it was not Minx thank goodness and none of the others are black enough for the one in the photo. But what are the odds, someone else posted a photo of one with more white than black (and I've got plenty of those) asking does anyone own this cat, also very close to where I live! 

Facebook has also been reminding me recently it is three years ago I moved here from a very stressful and unsatisfactory tenancy elsewhere where 5 cats totally disappeared and one not yet tame had to be abandoned. I've been waiting for Facebook to remind me that the day I fetched the cats home here (they were in cat care while the move took place) was Tigger's last as I was woken at 1.30am to the sounds of two big dogs pulling her apart on my terrace. And I'm damn sure I don't want to remember that any clearer than I do or ever hear the like again. Coincidentally, when I managed to get her away from them, she savaged me (not surprising really) out of pain and fright and I bled all over the place including my nightshirt. This really is digressing but I want to record it anyway and it probably doesn't need a separate blog. That shirt was gift from my best friend in Derby something like 16 years ago and this week I used it one last time when I died my hair and decided to bin it. 

It's not quite in the bin yet. It has two kittens on it by the way.