NaturallyResilient

About

When we lived on 68 acres, we were always losing cats. It may have been the coyotes or it may have been the mountain lion or it could have been the Owls or Falcons that surveyed the area.

We had recently lost a friendly Siamese named Mouser. I was suspicious that she might have taken a ride with some one; jumping in the back of one of the construction trucks that were constantly going in and out of our property. I was looking through the ads in the local paper to see if anyone had found a lost cat fitting her description. I saw an ad stating “Found, Female Siamese”. I called the number and a woman answered. The description she gave did not really sound much like Mouser but I thought I better check it out. She explained that she did not have the cat because her apartment would not allow animals but she always saw the cat when she and her friend went walking. She explained that the cat was always seen back behind a bank building and she usually brought it food as it was so skinny. I agreed to meet her behind the bank building the next afternoon.

The next afternoon Paul, Jesse and I showed up at the bank after banking hours. Wow! There must have been at least a 100 cats running around back there! Almost all of the cats were feral. Before too long the woman showed up. She pointed out a particular cat to me and with a little coaxing and some tempting food the cat came up. It was not Mouser.

The woman was so concerned about this cat and was so insistent that I take it so I could at least take it to the pound the next day. She would have done that but she never saw the cat except at night and she could not keep the cat overnight at her apartment and risk getting thrown out. I was just amazed that she had zeroed in on this one cat when there were a hundred running around us out there!

We took the cat but I had no intention of taking it to the pound, I just don’t work that way. The next morning we took it to our vet to get shots and to be spayed. I asked them to board her over the weekend as we had a camping trip planned and I would pick her up Monday morning.

Monday morning I brought Misty home. I opened the cat carrier and she came out. Harry had to come up and investigate and Misty promptly hissed at Harry. For the rest of the day Harry went around the house hissing. He hissed at anyone walking across the floor, he hissed at the vacuum cleaner, he hissed at anything that was out of place. He had learned a new word and had to try it out. Unfortunately this also set the tone for their relationship, they have never been good friends and are barely on speaking terms.