The wonderful people at cattrappers.org and Last Chance Rescue have helped me trap every feral cat that lives nearby - those that live here and those that just show up for a meal. Even the gonads of the huge street tom Sad Face went off to a landfill. And the few kittens that were born here and survived this spring got taken away too.
The experts say that kittens born feral have a small window of time to be "socialized" and learn to be OK with human contact. I have learned that a feisty orange kitten taken out of here was adopted by an 8-year-old girl and her young parents for a "forever home" while the other three are in a "no-kill" situation and up for adoption. Yeah, cash was donated to keep the kitties out of the "government animal shelter" but that was no big deal.
The big deal was my screwup in July of 2010. No doubt about it - the young and new mother street cat Mister Mittens was too old to be socialized with human caretakers. Her brain had gone over the tipping point and was zeroed-in to be a wild animal for as long as she could live. She was a garbage-eating street cat and a bird hunter.
I took this photo today. This cat is not altogether happy in a house after 7 years and 3 days. She was beyond the "window in time" to be socialized according to the experts. The warm sun on her body and the fan blowing on her on a warm July day while laid up in a comfy cat nest with a full belly is going to set her off into insane viciousness. I just know it.
