Thursday, October 04, 2007

the wee hours

Yay!  Hockey is back!

Boo!  The 2006-2007 Leafs seem to be back too.  Ugh, lost the season opener after being ahead in the third period, then giving up the tying goal and losing in overtime.  Could there be anything more typical of the Toronto Maple Leafs?  Damn.

We now know that Dobby is spending her nights behind the waterfall, next to the pool equipment.  It’s so nice to go out there and shine the flashlight at the rocks and see her.  Of course, we see her running away, but we see her.  Leigh-Ann put a trap (not armed, to get her used to it without scaring her off) in the back yard with food in it, and a crate next to it with our t-shirts & towels in it (to remind her of her loved ones, us!)...and kitty Greenies, and she’s eaten the food (twice!) and the Greenies.  Now we now that she’s feeling brave about going into the trap to eat, so tonight it’ll be armed, and hopefully our feral baby will be home.  I hope it was just an accident that she left and that she doesn’t have any desire, like Frank, to go roaming the great outdoors.  It’s pretty much impossible for us to keep a cat inside if it doesn’t want to be here, if we want to give the big dogs any freedom whatsoever.  Eli is getting old lady dribbly bladder, so we really don’t want to keep her locked inside if she needs to go out and pee.  German Shepherd bladders are very large, if you know what I mean.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

late evening

A Small Bit of Good Dobby News

We were worried that we hadn’t really seen her around (our big spotlight flashlight died a couple of weeks ago, and we finally got a good replacement delivered today) because all we saw were little fuzzy things running away.  And then tonight, Leigh-Ann saw the grey cat, which made us sad because we thought maybe we’d never really seen Dobby since the first day.  However, a few minutes ago, Dante was barking his head off like an idiot, which usually means a cat sighting (Dante & Eli found Frank when he escaped once), so Leigh-Ann took the new jumbo flashlight out and actually saw Dobby jumping from our wall into our neighbor’s yard.  Yay!  We were told to not set the traps for a few days, so she gets used to eating the food in them without getting caught.  So, we won’t be catching her tonight, but hopefully very soon.  As least we know she’s sticking around the house.  I can’t wait to have her “home”.  She’s a foster, but we need to de-feral her before we find her another home.  It’s not like you can tell people, “Here’s a really nice cat, but you can’t pet her until you’re very very patient while bribing her with pieces of kibble.  She’ll really love hanging out with your pets though.”

Monday, October 01, 2007

late evening

Small, Dark, and Fuzzy

Earlier this evening, I saw something small, dark, and fuzzy jump from the top of the waterfall rocks to the wall behind it, and then over it into Sam’s yard.  It could’ve been Dobby-sized.  I’m hopeful.  She still hasn’t come back to eat or to visit our t-shirts or towels.  The other cats are really subdued and seem to know something isn’t right, so they’re not playing as much as they usually do.  It’s amazing how one small kitten can make such a mark in everyone’s lives after only being around for a month.

mid-afternoon

Dobby’s Still Missing - It’s Time to Use The “Messages From Your Animal Companion” Cards

There’s still no sign of our semi-feral 12 week old kitten.  Also, poor TJ, one of the other cats, seems to be suffering from depression because of Dobby’s disappearance...or because it’s not especially cheery around here with her missing.  At least if we knew that she was hanging around the neighborhood, we wouldn’t be so worried.  She’s been loose before (we caught her in a trap about a month ago - she was really skinny then, so at least she’s fattened up now), so she has some street smarts, but we’d hoped that she would stick to our yard or our next door neighbor’s yard, until we could lure her back with our dirty t-shirts, organic catnip, yummy food, and cool toys.

It looks like it’s time to do a reading for her with the Animal Companion Cards that we just started selling.  We’ve only tried them on Dante, the Anatolian, and they were actually quite accurate.  We’re selling them for Wee Paws, our non-profit animal rescue, so we can raise some extra money for spays, neuters, food, litter, vet bills, etc.  The cards are pretty cool, and I’m going to go see if I can talk to Dobby now.  And yeah, you may think I’m crazy, but they totally worked for Dante.

On the left is Dobby, in one of the first pictures we took of her with the phone.  In the middle is TJ, looking a little chubbier than he actually is, on the right is TJ playing big brother with Bunny.