Gully-Cats

Tell me they're just misplaced, not abandoned....








We have a serious history of cats being abandoned here at the end of summer. Vacation people closing up their cottages and dumping the summer pets.
We've found homes a number of times for really appealing critters. And adopted far too many ourselves. (There's a limit to how many cats happily can fit in a household. We're still trying to assimilate Coco. The Borg might have better luck!)

Monday, Darrell came home from dropping a friend in Owen Sound and picking up some metal. I heard him thumping around out there for a while. Then he came in and asked if all our cats were accounted for. There was the sound of a very sad cat in his shop. He thought that one of ours, Bear, had somehow got himself into the walls. We talked to the cat from within. From without. Then all of a sudden I was sure I'd sensed the cat in the soffits outside the shop. So....off came the soffits....

And lo and behold, a terrorized cat! Not our cat, a small black and white cat. Leapt out and off into space, and into the unknown....

But the cat is back. With a friend. A sibling. Two small cats, hanging about. Wanting attention. But not quite.

Two little cats, skinny as all get out. Wanting people friends, but being totally unsure...

***[later...]


We had people up for the weekend, for a smelt. (Iron, not little fishes.) One of the friends works for a veterinary college, and confirmed that the small grey gully-cat was in not well shape for having tangled with a dog or coyote. She offered to take her, and impose upon the mercies of colleagues. At the very worst, at least Grey-Gully will be in sympathetic and caring hands.
That left Black-Gully, or "half-a-milk-moustache" as I was calling him or her.

For all her timerousness, she really wanted to be with people. These were not a pair of feral kittens born in the wild, but probably summer kittens there to amuse the kids, and now that the cottage was being packed up for the season, kittens go out with the trash.


I truly hope there's a nasty circle in hell for people who mistreat or abandon their animals!











But now, the Moustache-Gully has been taken away for hopeful adoption, and we were allowed to socialize her as much as wanted this weekend, in the hopes of improving her chances of selection.
I miss her already, but I have a full complement of cats, all from similar backgrounds, and they were quite insecure about the idea of being replaced. So I can console myself by reassuring them they're still loved and needed. And won't have to worry what happens to the gully-cats (this round) when the weather goes cold again in a day or two.

And yes, my cats are all neutered. And any cat I take in has a home for life.

anti-v