Cat Bandits....

For some time now, a couple of years easily, since Dolly was put on a diet, we have suspected that she has an alternate source of food.

Ollie is what she was originally named, (horrid), which morphed into Dolly, or otherwise known as 'Mau-mau'. She's a Black cat, with an auburn sheen that comes out in the sun like oil on mahogany; very beautiful with a short but very thick, shiny coat. She comes from, as do the kittens, a semi-feral cat colony. There are quite a few on the Island, and if the babies are captured early enough, they can become domesticated but they always retain their wild heritage in one way or another.... She's sexy and Rubinesque. Tough and very independent. In our family she's an alpha-girl, but savvy with her skills of diplomacy. She has a full house of four-legged and two-legged people to manage and does so with both a steely glance and a light touch. I could learn from her. And I do.

Dogs will love you no matter what. Having the love of any animal is an honour. It is a lifetime responsibility when one has an animal as a family member. Having the love of a cat who stays with you even though it has a cat door and can roam unhindered through the local world, is a gift above honour. They come back by choice. Cats CHOOSE to stay with humans. They dont have to. I often feel that humans adopt dogs but cats adopt humans...And we love our cats and dogs and spoil all of them shamelessly. Count 'em. Every one of our cats has a dawg... :) 1 each. times 4. That makes 8 four legged beasties. Yes we are a bit nuts, but that's ok.

Crazy is good.

Our animal meals, which consist of all kinds of good things such as - for the cats : wet cat food, and natural kibble- and for all the beasties: sardines, eggs with rice, my own home-made version of 'haggis' consisting of oatmeal, home made stock made from veggies, lamb and beef bones and a lot of time; some form of protein like canned salmon, ground beef or trout; veggies, seaweed, and whatever strikes my fancy to supplement their wet food and high-end kibble (which is paupering us, but we do love our beasties so sacrifices are made without much complaint). These are given out in exact measurements. Their nourishment and care are a source of pride for me ( pride goeth before a fall ).

I cant give the dogs the exercise they used to get because of my working hours (but they are middle aged now, being 8, 9, 9 and 10 going on 11, so they require less of a physical commitment and I go overboard in compensation with providing them what I can give....) They do get to the beach at least once a week during spring, summer and early Fall months, to swim and play, and several visits to the local ravine a week... mostly. The gentle paramble around the neighbourhood happens now and then, but they have their dog run out back which is a fenced in area approximately 75 feet per side. Frankly they use it as a toilet primarily, play pen only occasionally, as (duh) there arent any couches out there!

Anyway, back to the point, Dolly gets the same lovely food as all the others, only LESS . Because she's.... round. Rotund.

We have suspected that SOMEONE, due to her unaltered girth (which isnt dangerous but is ...'Zaftig') in the neighbourhood has been feeding her. Because she's a generously gifted thing. Stout. I call her plush. Her fur IS plush. Still, I thought it doubtful, due to her mistrust of strangers...And yet, sometimes, the odd occasion, she doesnt come home for dinner and stays out all night. The slut. First time it happened I 'grounded' her for a month, blocking the cat door at night. What would you have done?! It worked for about 6 months. She didnt play truant and came home at meal times like a good Catholic girl......

Huh.

Time went on and she became lazy with the rules, and the times she was absent, gone for hours past her meal time,always arriving late and then announcing her arrival as though she were the Queen, deigning to grace us with her Presence - and demanding a meal AT ONCE- I was grateful she came home. At all. Fat cats DONT miss their food opportunities, as we will soon reveal...

When she was playing truant, I walked the curbs and looked for her dead body, convinced she'd been struck and murdered by a car. Weeping, with a Miner's skull-beam flashlight on my head, I searched the shoulders and ditches, desperate to find her, dead or alive. Those of you who read my old blog under Chupaflor will recall my anxiety, and my ire (highly amusing no doubt in it's hindsight's telling) when she nonchalantly blasted through the cat door on the morning after ( or afternoon, I cant remember, little rat) and yowled for her missed dinner. As though it were MY fault she'd missed a gourmet home-made meal. Manipulative sow.

We got a call the other day from a distant neighbour who said our cat's collar had been found on his land. Kind of him to call. My heart stopped cold. Last time that happened the workers who found the collar of my cat, Tigger ( this was many years ago in Ontario, still married to my ex) were very gentle when they told him Tigger was dead. I was in England at the time and when I called home from a phone box to check-in, I collapsed on the ground when I heard the news and wept uncontrollably for two days.

I love my beasties too much. They are the only children I will ever have. When B told me our distant neighbour had called to tell us that Dolly's collar was at his house, I was sucker-punched, gobsmacked, thrown sideways and numb with sickness- at -heart, blood running cold....

But then I realized she was sleeping peacefully on the bed. On my Pillow.... Naturally.

Before work that day I went to the address, about 1/2 a kilometer away, and discovered that the land belonged to a regular customer and business acquaintance of mine. Apparently, Dolly has become known and has earned herself a reputation as a local pariah. She who is the affectionate and schmoozing cat, who comes home yowling loudly in welcome when she hears my car pull into the driveway and stretches out in my arms with a big purr-fest... She who yammers loudly at me when I go for a walk, scolding me when I leave the land. Like mother, like daughter-cat, she's a control freak... As for two leggeds, she's loving to me and pretty-much no one else including B, who was her first human, and who adopted her and is continuously choked that she has chosen me as her 'primary' human. She's fearless, fierce, a smoosh-ball of cudddles - for me- and loves her dogs with a possessive passion; especially William who she grew up with.

Little rat-bag has been roaming to other regions. Going over the 'big' road, and what's worse, Basil, my baby Baz, being lead down the 'garden path' by her Royal Terribleness, has learned to follow in her footsteps. Whether she actively solicited him is in doubt but clearly he followed her and a feline and unknowable to two-leggeds deal was struck. She showed him the ropes. It transpires that they have become a TEAM, and terrorize the cats from our, and neighbouring communities.

My Cat babies are terrorists.

It isnt funny. Dont laugh. Stop it! IT ISNT FUNNY! Okay, its a tiny wee bitty little bit funny. Well.... Hilarious, almost, if it isnt happening in your own house, and if you dont have to face angry neighbours. (We are a mad and dysfunctional family. Not unlike everyone else.....Although we have more feet than most. We endeavor to put the fun back into dysfunctional.....)

Lately, I've been noticing - strangely enough- that the incidence of cat-fight noises has been totally absent from our neck-of-the-woods since the kittens arrived, last May/June. In the past, a few summers ago, I remember Dolly running down the stairs of the front deck, to confront a stranger-cat. She was a scary thing. Literally a hell-cat. She on hind legs, arms waving wildly in the air, shrieking in that unholy other-wordly way that only irate (or amorous) cats can.... like a Ban-shee from some horror movie. (Yegads, I'D run from her right quick if I didnt know her! She's gorgeous but terrifying!)

What I realized this week is that the truth is that Dolly has seduced my baby Baz into a life of crime. He's not barely a year old! She's taught him street fighting. Taught him to be a con-artist and a bully. It seems it isnt enough to subdue and dominate the local cat population (who dont dare approach or encroach on our land anymore, hence the 'quiet' and lack of cat noises) . No, not good enough, they need to go to the NEXT neighbourhood, expanding their territory (across the 'big road').

Across the Very. Big. Road.

Shitfuckpissdamngoddamsonofabitch.

Meanwhile, poor neighbouring cats. My neighbour H said, when I arrived on his doorstep to get my rotten and criminally delinquent cat's collar, "Now that I know it's you who owns these cats, I feel a little bit better" whatever that means. Maybe it means he wont shoot them because he knows me, for they, according to him and I dont doubt him for a minnit, BEAT UP HIS CATS AND STEAL THEIR FOOD.

My children are criminals. Bandits. Hooligans!

Shit.

Bonnie and Clyde. I have bully cats. They are the local Feline Mafia!

(STOP LAUGHING!)

I cover my head in ashes of shame. I was so embarrassed when I went to retrieve her collar (one of many she's 'lost' and ironically the only one with her SPCA tag.)

IN other news: It is snowing. An unlikely and unseasonal dump of the wet and slushy stuff which threatens to freeze over-night, rendering the roads treacherous. I've got the wood-stove cranked and all the beasties are within. The terrible and unlikely twosome included. Monsters. The local and not-so-local cats and their dinners are, for tonight, at least, safe from marauding, voracious and unreasonably territorial cats who should know better and just stay home and sleep on the couch where it is warm, dry and I AM HERE to love them. Dont you think that should be enough for them?

You know, learning that one isnt enough for one's children, two or four footed, always sucks.

Cats will eat your face off if you die. Its true. They will eat your body whilst dogs will starve themselves (almost) before they desecrate your corpse. I love them. But Gods save me from dying alone in a house full of them. They are incorrigible. And a mystery. And really, my first love of animals. I will never be without them.

Hopefully if I die alone the neighbours will offer a more interesting menu.

I am only a human with a small scope of senses, limited in my understanding of almost everything in this world, and therefore good at having opinions and not-so-good at actually having real and genuine perception.

But I am grateful beyond words to have four-footed love, companionship and wisdom in my life. Thank you Goddess for giving me so much ( so very needed) unconditional love and relationship with the four-footed people and teaching me to be a student of them, and a friend to them.

They are the greatest teachers because they do not lie.

They might steal, drive you mad with worry, beat up and terrorize the neighbours ... and they might eat your face off if you unfortunately die alone, but they do not lie.

And that's something.

That's why I'll take on board, with big open arms, a four legged bandit over a two legged so- called person anytime.

Bird. xoxoxoxo