New Feral Cat!

i have two cats, and the THIRD is being scared right now...

A quick word about me.. I work in a restaurant.. (actually I've worked in many). The reason that I've worked in many is that MY restaurant is run by a kind and talented chef with a heart of gold... think DISNEY-FLICK-WITH-A-BAR.

i work in such a place now... family owned, recipes from the old country, blah-blah-blah, this ain't a food thread.

i clock in, check the salad station, eat a shrimp cocktail, and habitually hit the handsink by the back kitchen door. i mean habitually, i wash my hands 3000 times a day. but i sell entree plates that cost between 30- 120 dollars, so i figure i ought to.

the kitchen is HOT, the back door is cracked, there's a jumbo LOG of pounds and pounds of USDA PRIME PRIME-RIB cooling in the late autumn breeze. It's spiced (of course) and roasted to rare so it can cool to med-rare for slice-and-serve. this would serve 20 full grown adults easy. and its about a foot and a half away from the doorcrack. so. big smells a-waftin-i-suppose...

im IMMUNE i work here. you can wave crab legs at me and i just keep moving... BUT BUT BUT...

AS IM WASHING MY HANDS... a little black and white face with a pink nose pops into the crack in the door.

I yell, "CAT!"

Julio keeps whisking hollandaise. Bruce says "F" cats! I "Fn" HATE cats! i'll kick a cat!... i don't have time to frown at Bruce..

back on the floor.

back in the kitchen, Julio has the hollandaise bottled and Bruce says HEY MARK! (that's me I'm Mark)

Bruce says HEY MARK! You see that little cat? I'm feedin' it shrimp! check this out!
and its true! (yeah he's a tough-guy...)
We were doing a gumbo for the soup-d-jour and Bruce had-a-bout-a-thousand-really-tiny-shrimp-cooked-off for bowl toppers...
he was tossing them through the back-door crack LIKE A NINJA

and the little fuzz-face outback was acting like this had never happened before... (to be fair it really was her first time, its kind of a special place she found)

SO IT BEGAN! of all the places for a stray cat to find... the kitchen door of a prime rated steak and fish house? DUH

two days later we met her brother, he was missing the tip of his left ear. that was the only way we could tell them apart. once he showed up he never left her side again, of course the au jus MAY have played in to that... hand crushed anchovie paste COULD have been a factor..

they're the SAME cat twice, it is UNSPEAKABLY CUTE and they're made of hungry. and we can feed KINGZ!... we have shrimp and escargot and white anchovies and smelts, we have trout and salmon and scallops, we have crab and clams and mussels and lamb and bacon and broth and beef and bouillabase and chowder and chives and challots and cholula and chops. we get whole fish delivered four foot long..

up front the kings drop amex black cards and order dover sole, branzino, and au poivre...

out back the lil wild ones MEOW and get fish trimmings and hot fat and baguettes soaked in cream.

when he met HIM he had part of his left ear missing..

then SHE had part of HER left ear missing.. and i thought MOUSETRAP... i hope you both at least got the cheese.

they moved into a storage shed accessible beneath the restuarant smoker which is rarely used, huge, warm and dry...

SMART CATS.

ok so then we feed them a LOT, its SHAMELESS how hungry they are and its SHAMELESS how much food we have.

everyone tells me TAKE THEM HOME

i say but i have two strays now! they're both about fifteen and will be well P.O.d if i bring home two kittens...

the chef says I GOT THIS.

he converts the unused storage behind the smoker to wild-cat-ritz-carleton... not only do they have water and a cat bed... they have a heater and a private shrimp supply.

i tell the chef that he might have kittens by summer. he says I LOVE KITTENS.

i sleep well for three weeks.

HE goes missing right when then the BAD cold hits.

i give it a few days..

maybe hes roaming? maybe he was taken in by a neighbor? lots of people feed stray cats...

BUT HE NEVER CAME BACK. SHRIMP OR NOT SHE WAS ALL ALONE.

i said OK im off on friday Ill take her home...

but on THURSDAY NIGHT...

2 little rich girls came in with a box.

no offense to little rich gitls but these 2 did not know the story.

they had heard that there was a cat freezing out back and they felt that they HAD to do something.

i told them that the cat was going home with me on the very next day.


THEY TOLD ME THAT IT HAD BEEN OUT THERE FOR MONTHS. they said that they were going to take it right now.

my boss STOPPED me from messing with them and they got her.


i told myself to CHILL but then the girls said something about dropping her off at an animal shelter and i said AWCMON LEMME TAKE HER HOME RIGHT NOW BEFORE YOU KILL HER AT THE SHELTER!!

the girls said O NEVER. WE ONLY MEANT IF WE COULDNT

i said if you CANT than you shouldnt its a TEN YEAR commitment at min...

they said ok if we cant... then we will call you before the shelter..

i said peace.

IT TOOK FIVE DAYS.

befriending wild animals is an artform. it is rewarding for a long time in unexpected ways. wild animals are intelligent and emotional and free. find one, feed it, make pals, open the front door, love that it comes back, be worth coming back to. you cant lie to a wild animal.

so thats my drunken rant.

she came home with me after work because the girls came up and GAVE HER BACK.

wild rules. wild does not submit. wild knows a good deal though.

she meowd and peed the box when the girls took her (poor thing)

when i took her tonight she meowd and the box is clean.

i think shes gonna be OK here, its a big place on a cul-de-sac with NO traffic.

there's moles and katydids and trashtalkingsquirells, and ive been known to grow catnip in the garden.

shes about the size of a size six nike and the world aint been TOO nice to her yet...

so wish her luck.


NEW FERAL CAT!!!

wish i had a pick, ill see if i can do something about it...

I've got a feral cat for you. Come and get it.
It is black and leaves paw-prints the size of pancakes.
It is well fed. It's eaten all of my chickens and ducks.

a reply to: uwascallywabbit

Thats the best cat to have .. your lucky she chose you now youve got a friend for life ...

originally posted by: skunkape23
I've got a feral cat for you. Come and get it.
It is black and leaves paw-prints the size of pancakes.
It is well fed. It's eaten all of my chickens and ducks.

let my chickens run freerange .. the tigers cant eat them all that way ... tbh like having the tigers around .. better tigers than neighbors ..

As a fellow rescuer of stray and abandoned animals I salute you
There are few things more heartwarming or rewarding than rescuing an animal (or even just feeding a hungry one occasionally) and knowing that without you it most likely would have had a short and miserable life.
Most people will disagree but I think the cats that get rescued are aware of how lucky they are.

S&F


P.s thats not a bomb its a medal that looks like a bomb and this is the beer Id buy ya if you were in my neck of the woods

We have four rescued cats from animal shelters and my daughters brought home 3 of them. At night they stay outside and guard the chickens and scream weirdly when the fox shows up. The female usually screams and the males come running then I see the fox slinking off. One of the males likes catching and eating small lizards so I call him the Lizard King but also likes to catch and kill poisonous snakes and leave them for us to see. We have no more rats and mice here.

thank you tht made my day

a reply to: uwascallywabbit

thanks for the support!

im really happy she ended up here..

after all, i saw her first.

of course its gonna be hard to match that diet at home.

can i borrow 3oz lamb fat? and a pinch of red alaskan king?

i wish that was a joke.

but seriously.

WHAT SHOULD I NAME HER?

all suggestions are welcome and you have a nice day!

a reply to: uwascallywabbit

WHAT SHOULD I NAME HER?

all suggestions are welcome and you have a nice day!

Ive heard Cats really only respond when their names end in an "ee", "er" or "a" sound, Mugsy, fluffy, busta and chomper are examples of this.

my suggestions
1) ATSA = as in ATS'er coz you discussed her with us and we named her
2) Alley= coz she was an alley cat
or my favourite and top pick
3) Finer = coz you got her used to the Finer things in life haha

Maybe you can pick a few names and start a thread, post a few picks and ask people to vote
You could put in the pets/animals forum where the multitude of animal lovers who frequent this site can see it and.... Oh, hang on..... wait sorry....... youll just have to put it in General Chit Chat as the site despite many repeated requests and threads has flat out refused to put in an animal lovers forum

a reply to: uwascallywabbit

Thanks for sharing (on many levels). 👍

There are animal organizations out there that catch feral cats....spay or neuter them, ....and release them back to the community. It is a form of controlling the over breeding without having to put them down...they are released back outside where they are found since feral cats usually don't conform well to a home environment. BUT...before they release them back into the community( after they have been fixed) they clip the ear. It denotes to other cat rescues that they have been fixed. ...so I do not believe your new kitty will ever have kittens. I am glad you're looking out for her, she needs your help. If she's living outside, don't forget to use frontline on her for the fleas. Do not use HArtz products. HArtz will make her sick.

what a great story, and you are a great guy, that lil kitty is lucky to have you.

What the # did I just read...



& # those stupid rich #es. "Hey! Let's save this poor kitten by taking it to the nice warm animal shelter!"
I hope they die in a fire.

There is nothing as wonderful as wild pussy. Feral cat is wild pussy. What where you thinking I meant? You cheeky bastard!

I have rescued many cats and kittens through the years. You won't regret it for a minute. You now have years of love and memories ahead of you. With your older cats being so old, you will be especially grateful to have your new friend if one or both should pass away. Kudos for a job well done!

thanks for all the heartfelt replies, you folk are GREAT!

might call her Miha (espana=little girl)

she was chewin on my shoelaces while i read your replies.

shes gonna fit in great around here.

AND THE CHEF SAID BRING HER BACK TO THE PORCH! I MISS HER!

as much as i love that guy (he is a fountain of lamb-chops)

shes here to stay

love you all

a reply to: uwascallywabbit

Awwww, so sweet! She seems happy with you already. Awesome!!

OMG

she is SO freakin awesome

RIGHT NOW she is being freaked out by the TV.

its HUGE and there's people in there BUT SHE CANT SMELL THEM?!?! WTF? (thats imposssssssible... i know they're in there i can see AND hear them..

WTF?

shes batting at the screen non stop
we are watching the strain BTW, i dig GDT

a reply to: uwascallywabbit

so when she got here i put the cat-travel box in the downstairs.. opened the cage-door, and then went upstairs for about 15 minutes...

when i came back down she was hidden, of course..

and i put my plan in motion.

i put



on the stereo and sat in the middle of the room and pretended that i wasnt interested in anything.

it didnt take too long...

she came sneaking out to say HEY?

what sounds like that?

i was like NUTHIN!

you wanna get scratched on?

and she was like, yeah ok

you mind if i purr at about a thousand miles an hour?

and i said, nah thas cool.

we gonna be ok

on friday we meet the 2 fifteen yr old strays that ALREADY run my life.....


WISH ME AND LITTLE ONE LUCK