Throwback Thursday: all the cats who have shown up at Crooked Acres.
Last week, after we had Archie neutered, Fred started counting all the cats who have shown up here since we bought this house. I had him send me the list, because I thought that would be a good Throwback Thursday list. It’s entirely possible that we’ve forgotten someone, so if you notice someone who isn’t on the list, let me know!
I’m going to try to arrange this list in the order in which they showed up.
Roscoe. He showed up in June 2010. He was very sweet and friendly, but unfortunately he tested positive for Feline Leukemia and was starting to get sick, so we opted to euthanize.
Coltrane either showed up right around the same time as Roscoe, or shortly after. We had him tested and neutered, and he hung around outside for a while. Eventually he wanted inside, and Fred let him in. We were pretty sure that he had another home down the street, though no one we asked seemed to know where that home was. Even after we had him neutered, he’d go off and be gone for a couple of days, then show up again. He was with us for about a year when he was struck by a car. Fred buried him out by the garden shed, where he liked to hang out. He has a permanent residents page.
Lieu showed up on June 10, 2010. There’s a culvert at the edge of our property that runs under the road, and Lieu was in there, howling his head off. I had visions of having to crawl into the culvert to get him and getting stuck, but what actually worked was that Fred took a bucket of water to the other side and dumped it into the culvert. When it started coming at him, Lieu turned and ran right into my hands. We had a litter of kittens – the Rescuees – and added him to the litter. He was a bit smaller and younger than they were, but they got along just fine. He was adopted out through Challenger’s House.
Martin showed up on July 18, 2010 (what on EARTH was going on in the summer of 2010?!). Fred was walking outside, and something darted under the bush by the side of the house. It turned out to Martin, who was very hissy and growly and hard to catch. The post about the day he showed up is here. We ended up putting him together with three other kittens – Melodie, Moxie and Dodger, none of them related to each other – and they became friends. He was adopted out through Challenger’s House.
Alice showed up in December 2010. Fred happened to walk onto the front porch, and she was there eating out of the food bowl. She ran off and hid in the bush on the side of the house. We spent a long time, out in the cold, trying to coax her out, but she wouldn’t be coaxed. Finally, Fred set up a trap on the front porch and we left to run a quick errand. When we returned half an hour later, she was in the trap. She was tiny, and I thought she was only about 8 weeks old – so imagine my surprise when it turned out that she was more like six MONTHS old! Once she was tested and pronounced healthy, we added her to the Brady Bunch litter. She never really bonded with them, but she did go off to Petsmart… for one whole night. Obviously, she’s a permanent resident now. Fred loved her in part because he thought she was going to remain tiny. HA HA HA SUCKERRRR.
Rufus showed up in March 2011. He just kind of started coming around one day. He’d run off when we opened the door, and Fred wasn’t able to get hold of him. Then I looked out and saw him under the bird feeder in the side yard, eating bird seed, and I decided that (1) he was starving and (2) he was female and probably pregnant (because he was a fairly floofy boy.) So Fred used the trap to trap him, and brought him inside. We didn’t have any fosters at the moment, because I was recovering from surgery. He became a Challenger’s House cat (we fostered him ’til there was room for him at Petsmart), and was adopted out through them.
Newman showed up around the same time. He was instantly friendly and ran over to me when I called to him. We asked around, and no one knew where he’d come from. He kept coming around, looking thinner and hungrier, and we decided it was time to do something. Luckily, there was room for him at the shelter so we brought him inside for one night, then I dropped him off at the vet. He was tested/neutered/id chipped/got his shots, and went to the shelter for a few weeks until those stinky tomcat hormones were out of his system. He was adopted out from Petsmart.
Dorothy showed up on April 28, 2011. It was the day after tornadoes had gone by very closely, and our neighbor found her in his driveway under his car, howling her little head off; we estimated that she was about 7 weeks old. There was nothing to do but name her Dorothy, and bring her inside. She became a Challenger’s House cat (and I’m wondering how on earth we pulled that off, because we had Maggie and her babies, Rufus was still around, and then we had to keep Dorothy separated from everyone else until she could be tested. SIGH. Remember the days before Fred stole my second foster room for his office? Fred works from home, for those of you who didn’t know.) She was spotted by Andrea, who fell in love and drove here from St. Louis. Dorothy actually has her very own blog!
One day, when Dorothy was still being kept separate, in the guest bedroom, I didn’t realize that Rufus (who was out in General Population) had slipped through the door, and I walked into the room to find this going on:
The smug is thick.
Rupert showed up in April 2012. He was immediately very friendly (and very thin), and we were pretty sure he’d been dumped. We whisked him off to be tested and neutered. I don’t think I ever mentioned this, but he was FIV positive. Given that he was not at all an aggressive cat, we decided to add him to the family. We were working toward bringing him inside, but before we could do that, he was struck and killed by a car. I wish we’d moved faster to bring him inside; he was a really awesome guy. You can read more about him here.
Stefan showed up in early 2013 (and by the way, I don’t know who that cat is in the first picture on his Permanent Residents page, but it ain’t Stefan, I can tell you that. It kinda looks like Coltrane, but it can’t have been.) He started off scared and skittish, but eventually let Fred befriend him, and of course we whisked him off to the vet to be tested and neutered and get his shots. It was several months before we started letting him inside, but now he’s inside more than he’s out, and he’s carved a little niche for himself amongst the permanent residents.
Potsie showed up in October or November of 2013. I was pretty sure he belonged to someone in the area because he was in really great shape and not in any hurry to be friends with us (now that I think about it, he might be the one in the first picture on Stefan’s page). We eventually befriended him enough to get him into a carrier, whereupon we took him to be tested, neutered, and vaccinated. When we got him home from that, he ran off. He came back around a few more times, but we haven’t seen him in months – I suspect he decided it was safer to stay at home (and neutering male cats also tends to make it so that they wander less, so maybe he’s sticking closer to home.)
I first mentioned Chachi in April of this year, but he’d been showing up since the previous November or so. He would run away the instant he caught sight of us, so we figured he was truly feral. But after months of trying, he decided we weren’t so bad. Fred was finally able to snatch him up, and we took him to the vet for his testing and neutering. When we got him home, we put a collar on him with a note that said, basically, “Is this your cat? We just want to make sure he has a home.” We never saw him after that, so I’m guessing that his owners decided to keep him inside (or, y’know, maybe once he was neutered, he decided to stop straying.)
Monday showed up in June of this year. The night before she showed up, Dennis managed to get over the back yard fence. He was gone all night, and was back in the morning. When Fred walked out onto the side stoop after he found that Dennis was back, a kitten went running for the front porch. When he called, she turned around and came straight to him. I don’t know for sure that this happened, but we like to say that Dennis found her lost and scared, and brought her here. She went straight to the vet for testing/spaying/vaccinations, and then to the shelter for a few weeks, then to Petsmart when there was room. She was there for a while, but was eventually adopted with Marshall, who was our foster from the Cheez Doodles litter.
This brings us to Archie, who showed up around the beginning of November. He was scared and skittish, but with the help of canned food, Fred coaxed him into being friends (that picture above was taken on November 18th, which is the first time Fred made contact.) He’s been tested/neutered/vaccinated, and he spends about half his time here and half his time elsewhere. We’ve talked to the neighbors (who, I am sure, are 100% over us and our ridiculous questions about the cats who wander through here), but haven’t found anyone who knows him aside from spotting him off in the distance. The vet estimated him to be about 2 years old. I’m planning to get a post written about him soon, in hopes that we can spread the word and find him a permanent home.
This brings us to…
Spike, who has been showing up at the feeding station for a couple of months now. He looks VERY much like Chachi, but it isn’t him. Might be related, though! If we could get hold of him, we’d put a collar and note on him, maybe he’s coming from wherever Chachi came from. We (and by “we”, I mean “Fred”) will keep working on him, and we’ll see. Fred started out calling him “Notchi”, but then we switched his name to Spike (who was Chachi’s cousin on Happy Days.)
The cats who wander through here from time to time, who I don’t have a picture of yet:
Blockhead Tom – an all-black male, with a huge tomcat head. We see him very rarely, maybe once a month, and now that I mention it, I don’t think I’ve seen him in quite a while.
The Stefanalike. Like Blockhead Tom, he shows up very rarely and doesn’t stick around. He looks a lot like Stefan (though I he’s a darker orange) and has a big, floofy tail.
The cats you might think belong on this list, but I didn’t include because they didn’t actually show up here:
Jake and Elwood: they were deliberately dumped here (there was a container of food left on the side stoop.)
Stompers: He came from the neighbor, who rescued him from a house down the road.
The Cookies: They came from the same house as Stompers, brought to us by the same neighbor.
The Bookworms: They came from the office park near where Fred used to work.
The Wonkas: Came from the same office park (and mother) where the Bookworms came from (the Wonkas actually came first.)
Maxi and Newt: they came with the house; Maxi belonged to the people who sold us this house, and they “couldn’t catch her” to take her with them. (Nope, not rolling my eyes at ALL.)
So, there you go. Who’d I forget??
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Rough life, Jethro.
I love the whiskers. He is such a pretty boy, isn’t he?
Lizzy on her platform, judging.
“We watchin’ you, lady.”
The Ear of (slight) Annoyance.
Such a pretty girl.
TC laying on the collapsed basket, hanging on to his toy, watching the other kittens race around.
Jethro would like to know why Graze doesn’t do kitteh treats.
I really need to figure out a way to attach this cord to the wall. It’s attached to the small space heater in that room, and the cord is covered, so they can’t bite into the cord or anything, but I’d rather they not play with it!
Lizzy is off for her testing and spaying this morning! She’ll be back tonight, smelling like the vet’s office and making the other kittens growl, I’m sure.
Which reminds me – yesterday morning, I walked into the foster room to find Lizzy and TC curled up together. Awwww!
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Doesn’t Dennis look SO sweet and innocent, like he wasn’t JUST chasing Alice around and making her hiss? Such a brat! (Dennis, that is. Not Alice. Although she does get a BIT overdramatic, if you ask me.)
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Previously
2013: More attitude from the Carm.
2012: They sniffed around wildly for a while, and then decided it was okay, this strange room where (they seemed to think) they’d never been before.
2011: Gracie is a good watchdog.
2010: No entry.
2009: Look at him, looking so innocent when he was JUST biting that tail right in front of him and making his sister cry!
2008: No entry.
2007:
2006: Noelle with troll hair.
2005: No entry.