Meet Our "Newest Addition"......

Not by CHOICE I might add!!! I've spent the last 3 weeks trying to chase this cat off!! Our few neighbors cats have all died off from distemper and apparently one from an area farm decided to come to our place looking for "love".

Having only seen it from a distance, as I was usually screaming at it, throwing something at it or turning the dogs loose to chase it....I'd assumed it was a girl. It would scream out in the corn and sounded like a female cat in heat. After catching it in the live trap however, size alone told another story. He's one big cat!

So last week I finally decided we should just catch this cat, spay it and be done with it. If it wanted to hang around here, fine. But you will NOT be having kittens in our barn! We set the live traps a few times and all I ever caught were "our" cats or our chickens! UGH! I was about to give up when Tuesday night Bill was sitting on the back porch and this cat - came around the corner of the house to eat. She didn't see Bill until the very last second and then of course RAN!!!! So, Wednesday night we set up the live trap there and put our 3 cats in kennels. At 10:30 that night, we had our prey!! One white and orange cat!!

The next morning I didn't really pay it much attention (except to move the live trap into the shade for the day). Let me tell you, it is WILD!!! It would bounce from one end of the live trap to the other! YIKES!!! I wore gloves when I moved the trap so as to not get scratched, it never tried to "get you", but it wanted out!!! It's growling was something else. Kind of freaky!

So when I got home Thursday afternoon I took a closer look at the cat. It was obviously NOT a girl. Okay, cheaper to "alter" that way! It was also not young, blind in one eye (probably uclerated) and scratched up pretty well. "Dude, you've been ridden hard and put away wet!!".

I was off today, so Bill called a local vet to see if they could neuter him today. Honestly, do you know what Tom Cat urine smells like!! He couldn't stay in that live trap much longer....EEEWWWW!!!!! They could get him in, so I put him in the back of the truck and off we went. I also took along a nice clean 400 vari-kennel with clean straw to put him in while he was out. As we drove along the countryside I noticed many nice farms that this cat would have gladly gone to, but I just couldn't do that to someone else. To the vet we continued.

When I arrived I carried in the live trap and I used a dowel to trap him in a corner while the vet stuck him with a sedative. I told the vet that this was either this cat's lucky day or worst day, he'll have to take his pick. The vet agreed and said he looked like he'd used up plenty of his lives already. So snip, snip...off came the 'parts', a poke with a rabies shot and we're good to go.

He needed a name for the cat to fill out on the rabies card. Him, all my cats names start with a "C". There's Chemi, Cher and Cougar. Gosh, he plenty "pissed off", so how about Cross. So, Cross it is.

I ask how long the sedative will last as I'd like to give him a distemper shot when I get home. He tells me it should last about an hour and he'll be slow to wake up. Well, let me tell you, they are NOT slow to wake up when you come at them with a needle!!! LOL So I guess the distemper shot will have to wait until he tames down. Or, maybe he'll have to live without one. I'm not sure if after chasing him away for the last several weeks if he'll ever get tame. We'll see.

So for now he's in a kennel, with food and water. We'll let him in there for a couple days and then turn him loose to see what happens. At least he won't be making anymore unwanted kittens!!