The Cat Farm

On May 24, 2002 my life changed completely.  I didn’t know it at the time.  All I did was open a door.  My front door.  I never went out my front door.  I always went through the garage.  I couldn’t even see my front door from the front of the townhouse - the “front” door was down a walkway on the side of the house. But, now I had the front door open to let in some air, and I saw a tag hanging on the door knob. It was a note from Ron, the guy from the pest control company,  telling me he’d put a trap near the side gate and asking me to call him if I caught something.  Only problem was, it was dated 4 days earlier!  I had a sinking feeling as I walked back to the gate. We were trapping for skunks and I was sure some poor animal had been stuck in there for days.

The whole business had started several months earlier when I came home to the overwhelming smell of  cat pee. There is nothing in the world like tom-cat stink - and my place reeked of it.  Since I didn’t have a cat, I figured it must be coming up from under the house, and the cat must be getting under the house from under the back deck since all the vents I could see were sealed.   The smell came and went all spring.   Finally we decided Ron needed to go under the house and check, but after a close-encounter-of-the-skunk-kind at another customer’s house, he wasn’t taking any chances at mine.  Hence the trap.

I walked back to the side gate and saw the trap was shut.  I felt bad, but I was about to feel much worse.  The trap had solid sides and ends - after all we were going after skunks and having a wire trap wasn’t going to make handling them very easy or stink free.  But the solid walls meant  I couldn’t see what was inside the trap.  As I crouched down to look I noticed a little movement in the shrubbery nearby.  Two tiny kittens.   A moment later and I realized - Oh. My. God.  Their MOM is in the trap!  I shook it a little and waited for sound or movement or something to tell me she was still alive!  Nothing.  I started to panic.  It was Friday before Memorial Weekend.  I remembered Ron saying something about a company picnic or or training or event or something and they were going to be closed on Friday.  I grabbed my cell and dialed anyway.  A recording wishing me a wonderful weekend.  Well, that wasn’t likely now was it. I raced back inside. Ron had called me from his home when we set the original appointment. With any luck my caller ID would still have his number. I punched the button repeatedly until I found it - jackpot!  I dialed. His wife answered.  I took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly.  No need, she understood the problem immediately; Ron was just leaving so she ran out to catch him.  Ten minutes later he was in my driveway.

The kittens had disappeared under the deck.  I was trying to figure out how to open the trap while I apologized to their dead mom over and over. If only I used the front door! I would have seen his note the same day he placed it. I could have watched the trap and let her go as soon as she was caught.  I didn’t know when she was caught, but I remembered hearing a kitten-like sound early one morning. I thought it was a bird at the time, but now I realized it must have actually  been a kitten - crying for it’s mom.  I couldn’t believe the babies I’d seen were still alive without a mom caring for them - they were so tiny.  I was trying not to cry myself when Ron walked up and said, “Well. Let’s see what we have here.”

He picked up the trap and stood it on end.  No sound from inside.  He peered in some tiny holes on the end with the door.  Then he reached down, opened it up, looked in and smiled.  I leaned over and looked in.  Looking up at us was a tiny grey striped kitten with huge blue eyes.  The kitten regarded us solemnly without making a sound.  Ron reached down and picked it up by the scruff. It squeaked once, and then just hung there studying us while we studied it.

“What do you want to do with it?” Ron asked.

“It’s too little to be away from it’s mom.” I said knowingly, while knowing little about cats and nothing about kittens.  After my first cat - a young female - ran away to have babies when she and I were both very young, my parents wisely made sure all subsequent pets were male.  Spaying, or neutering cats was rare back in those days.

Ron put it down and it scampered away under the deck. Ron reset the trap, told me to keep tabs on it and call him if I caught anything else.  Before he left he showed me how to open it.  He also told me to be careful if it was heavy - it might be a skunk or raccoon.  After he left  I went in the house and ate some breakfast.

An hour later I went out to look at the trap. It was closed again.   I lifted it gingerly. Clearly I knew as little about skunks as I did about kittens.  Skunks tend to hunker down during the day.  I wasn’t likely to catch one until after nightfall.  The trap was light so I peered in the tiny holes, then opened the trap.  The tiny grey striped  kitten with the huge blue eyes blinked at me and squeaked.

“What are you doing back in here?  Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?”  I let it go again. It scampered away under the deck. As I watched it go I thought it seemed weaker and tottered rather than ran.  I chalked it up to getting weak from hunger and hoped it’s mom would show up and feed it soon.  In my opinion she wasn’t doing a very good job if her baby was scavanging cheap cat food from a stinky skunk trap!

A few hours later - click! This time I heard it.  I was working in my office, and the gate was just outside the window.  I walked outside and surveyed the closed trap.  I tipped it up, and addressed the large blue eyes, “Dude, you are not very bright are you.  If I catch you in here one more time, you are coming in with me cause you are stupid enough you are going to get eaten if you stay out here.”  This time I noticed the two orange kittens had returned. They were curled around each other close to the trap.  One of them looked a little sick with a crusty nose, and eyes that were sealed shut with gunk.

I got the absolutely brilliant idea of using the grey striped kitten to catch the sick one.  I put the grey striped one in a box next to the trap, and reset the trap.  Obviously the sick orange one would go into the trap cause it’s sibling was in a box next to it. Right?

Yeah.

Okay.  You can see I had a lot to learn.

A lot.