Small Victories

A couple of years ago, I began to see a tabby cat with a triangle of white on his muzzle wandering around all over the street. By chance I found out who he belonged to. A couple of times I suggested she might like to get him neutered, to curb his wandering and make him safer.

She didn't, and gradually this cat got bigger and bigger and became more and more of a problem, as he tried to dominate the area. He is now one of the biggest cats I've ever seen, including Maine Coons, and he has turned into a thug and a bully. She and I have had very strong words about him on more than one occasion. Meanwhile he was regularly trying to intimidate my cats, threaten my chickens, and eventually started to injure other local cats, some of them quite seriously, causing hefty vet bills. Still all she could offer was expletives.

The other night local loved-up cat Ginge/Ginger Boy/Diego, who has adopted the whole world as his family, to the extent that, though his pathetic owner hasn't even bothered to give him a name, another neighbour has had him neutered and vaccinated and everyone feeds and shelters him, was hunkered under a car in the street as the Thug (otherwise known as Bully Boy) tried to exert his superiority.


Obviously my house was not the answer. My tiny weeny cat Mitzi hates the pretty ginger cat with a vengeance and chases him off the moment she sees him. But just then another neighbour came along and whisked him into the safety of her house.

Last night the doorbell rang. It was the owner of the Thug. Meekly and mildly, she asked me if I had seen her cat. She had jusy brought him back from being neutered(!!!) and he had made good his escape. I checked my garden but he had the good sense not to appear there.

It seems that it took three people to get him into a cat basket, and the owner was covered in deep scratches.

I didn't say he would have been easier to handle had they done what they should have when he was six months old. I just offered the advice that the vet could give them a tranquilliser to put in his food when he has to go back for his second injections.

Then I set about phoning the owners of his victims to tell them the good news!