Over the years many unwanted cats have been dumped along the roads around a nearby lake, resulting in the surrounding woods being full of feral cats, the progeny of those cats. The area is also home to a lot of raccoons and opossums. Due to loss of habitat due to residential subdivisions, the raccoons began coming through my pet doors. In self-defense I began leaving a bag of cat food outside for them. Wrong move on my part. But this was nearly 20 years ago. Since then I've "grown" a lot of raccoons and possums as well as providing for the strays.

A neighbor behind me called one day for me to identify a cat they'd caught in a 'kindness trap' borrowed from Animal Control. The neighbors thought the cat might be mine although I doubted it. Cats have their territories and I knew that particular area wasn't a part of my cats' territories. However, I'm surprised one of my cats hadn't smelled the tuna with which they'd baited the trap. No wonder they'd caught a cat! I'm amazed their yard wasn't overrun with cats. Tuna fish is my cats favorite food.

This happened while Bobby was still a stray, but a regular at my house. I walked around just to see who they'd caught. Bobby was uncomfortably hunkered inside the trap. I mentioned that I'd been feeding the cat so they released him from the cage. Not long after that Bobby learned, from observation, how to enter my cat door, and the rest is history. When a cat learns to come in the pet door, a trip to the vet for a little "pruning" is scheduled.

Bobby, a gray tabby, began to hang out at my house only for the food. He had once belonged to another family because not only was he tame, he had a really sweet disposition which is not that easy to develop in cats without lots of tender, loving care. He absolutely refused to fight, which was out of character with his looks. He was a tough, heavyset, bruiser-looking cat and could have whipped any of our neighborhood cats without a sweat. Physical looks can be deceiving. Instead he endured a lot of abuse by Purrcy, our self-appointed bouncer and premises protector, who was himself another stray.

First I called him Bruiser Bob. After watching his behavior I changed his name to Bruiser Baby, then Bobby. He tolerated Purrcy's intimidation tactics without retaliation, choosing to ignore Purrcy as best he could. He loved attention and affection, but then, don't we all?

Copyright © Betty Craiglow
March 8, 2004