You’d think with all of the human suffering in the world this wouldn’t bother me so much…but…
A few weeks ago the guards here where I work sent out an email with a picture attached. A small cat had been hanging around the entrance to one of the facilities and they started feeding it. They kinda got used to him so they let him sleep in their gaurd shack. They had a bed for him and the whole nine yards…food, water, litter. They let the cat come and go as it pleased because they didn’t know if anyone owned it. The email they sent out was to see if he belonged to anyone here or if anyone knew where he came from. A few days later a coworker of mine said she opened the door to her apartment and the same cat ran inside. She was about to go away for the weekend, but he was such a cute cat she wanted to keep him. So I agreed to let him stay at my place with my other cats for the weekend. We called him “Scooter” for no good reason, and he’s only about maybe 4 months old. My friend got back and took him to a vet. He’s in good health and his only problem were ear mites, which he’s been treated for.
But for the last few days I’ve seen a nearly identical cat hanging around the back gate of the facility. Same colors, same size, etc. Its not Scooter. My friend is on leave so we’ve (my wife and I) have been taking care of Scooter. I think it must be a cat from the same litter though. I don’t know if anyone owns him (or her). It makes me so sad to see a stray cat or dog. I don’t know why, it bugs the crap out of me. Thats how we ended up with three cats in the first place. (Jet Jaguar was abandoned when we already had 2 cats…he would sit outside of my door begging for food and one rainy cold evening I couldn’t leave him outside in good conscience. So since then he’s been our cat…and he’s a good cat. He likes people, he never fusses when anyone picks him up. He does this cute paw tap thing when he wants you to pay attention to him, etc. I’m glad we took him in.
But at the same time there was another stray in the neighborhood my wife called ‘Patches’. She was a sweet cat too. Man, I wanted to adopt her too, but we had 3 of them at the time and my wife said no even though she loved Patches.
It just breaks my heart for some reason. I wish it didn’t but it does. I can’t go inside of Pet Smart and look at the animals there for adoption without getting sad. I had to leave the pound once (when we were first looking for a pet) because it almost made me cry in front of everyone. Geez, yet I can get annoyed at people hitting me up for change on the street. I don’t even really understand why stray animals upset me so much. Its neen about 7 years and I don’t live in the same place, but I still feel bad for not taking in Patches. (Though I did give Jet a home, so maybe it evens out.)
As for Scooter…well, he’ll be with us for another week. My wife works nearly across the street from my coworkers home, so she takes him there before work, and brings him back to our place at night so he’s not all alone all day. Theres only one problem…Banshee. Our cats are older than Scoots, obviously. He’s just a kitten. Jet is about 7 or 8, **'Stache **is at least 13 pushing on 14, and Banshee is around 12. Jet and Scooter (being the only 2 males) get along great. They play “chase me” through our place, sleep on the cat tree together and occassionally perch on my nightstand and stare at me together (which is kinda creepy, actually). 'Stache is old enough that she doesn’t really care what Scooter does as long as he lets her sleep. Banshee however has a full hate-on for the little guy. I wasn’t home, but my wife had to lock Banshee in the spare room. She told me that she just suddenly went apeshit and charged across the room and attacked Scooter. Not a 'I’m playing" attack either. She told me that Jet and 'Stache both ran over and jumped on Banshee so it was a big mess of a fight. Luckily none of them were hurt, but obviously Scooter is now terrified of her. *(Banshee is after all bigger than he is…and she’s fat. 16 lbs. She’s on a diet, but she’s a tub. I’m actually suprised that she can charge.) *I kind of witnessed them fighting. The other night my wife decided to see if Banshee was calm enough to handle Scooter being in the house so she let her out of the spare room. For a good 5 to ten minutes Banshee sat on her lap calm and purring. Scooter was on the other side of the room just minding his own business when BOOM…Banshee rushed him again. I didn’t see the fight, I was in another room. But I took Banshee into the spare room again and man, she was pissed. She’s always been a bit of a grouch, but I’ve never seen her so aggressive and mean.
I have no idea why she hates Scooter. He’s never done anything to piss her off. He’s scared to go near her if we let her out of the spare room. When Scooter’s not in our place she sleeps in the all of the time anyway. But if he’s anywhere in the place she’ll go purposely look for him with the intent to fuck him up. Maybe someone can shed some light on why a usually calm, inactive and submissive cat would do this. (Banshee isn’t scared of Jet, but she won’t cross swords with him. The few times they’ve mixed it up Banshee either runs or does the submissive cat thing where she gets on her back and just hisses and scratches at air.He’s bigger than she is and while Jet isn’t very aggressive. (He’s not aggressive at all) he won’t take any crap from her.