Can We Keep Her?

January-February 2009

Mistake No. 3

I absolutely fell in love with "Miss Pretty," picture to the right. How could you not love that sweet little face?

A few weeks before we trapped the cats, it snowed. They looked so cold and we had not discovered how to make those great little houses yet. I had blankets and towels out in the chairs for them. I checked every day to be sure they were dry.

I have no idea how they made it through that winter. After I started looking through the photos, I realized we didn't build Kitty City until the winter of 2009-10.


So the cats were still trying to stay warm under the patio table and on the towel beds I had made.


These are pictures of the second family right before we trapped them and took them to the Snip and Tip place. I had to take pictures out the back door because they would run away when I went outside. 

So back to the stories and Mistake No. 3.

Looking back, I can't believe I didn't think of what to do next. These were four kittens and they would have easily been "socialized." In other words, I should have found homes for them.

But . . . we brought all of the cats back home, into the garage to wait for the big Release.

In the meantime, I had come up with a plan and tentatively shared it with Don. He just rolled his eyes and shrugged. I told him I would like to just see how "Miss Pretty" would do if we kept her inside. I promised I would not keep her if she had any problems at all with the litter box. He agreed and I started by getting her out of the trap and petting her. She was fine. So I brought her in and set her up in the downstairs bathroom with food, water, and of course, a litter box. She did just great!

And the rest is history. We renamed her Belle and she is probably one of the sweetest cats we've ever had. Her mama raised her well. I know, 3 cats in the house is a bit much, but I told myself that, after all, Cassie was getting old and probably wouldn't live much longer. (Hmmm, that was 2009 and it's 2014 as I'm writing this, and yes, Cassie is still with us.)


Speaking of Mama . . . Did you notice that she was not one of the cats trapped?

You guessed it. We needed to plan to trap cats again.