Hi Mike!

> back. I took and passed on Your thoughts. It is a tough one, but I don't
> see bringing the wild animal(s) in with her housecats and she does not
> either, but would love to. The next problem would be getting them. They
> eat people leftovers, but run from people at closer that 10 feet. They
> have a perfect hole through the fence they zip right through. Best
> chance of getting them would be to send someone on the other side and as
> they ran through, try to grab them.

I've seen a few feral kitties in our neighborhood.. It is so sad.. I see
people moving out, and just leaving their kitties..  If they're young enough
they grow up wild.. When that happens, it _is_ really hard to catch them.
There were a pair of Calico's around here maybe two or three years ago..
obviously part of a litter that was just dumped.  You couldn't get near those
two for anything.. I tried cat food, tuna.. nothing worked. Someone in the
local 'rescue' found them and knew better ways to attract them so they could
be adopted, so that was good.

> I don't know how sucessful that
> would be. It just sux to see such nice looking healthy looking animals
> being left out to nature to possibly meet their end in the cold weather.

I know.  Do you remember my kitty Tina, that we took in?  Carol met her at the
last picnic here.. When we found her outside, she was so sick with infection
from a failed pregnancy, that she was actually snooting Toby and Priscilla,
our black labs through our chain-link fence.  She was easy to catch because
she wanted help.. $500.00 later after the visit to the vet (she really was
near death, the vet said) we had her for our own for maybe 5 years.. then she
just strangely died with no warning.  Our vet said it was probably related to
the first rough year of her life, before we took her in. :( At the vet's he
estimated her age to be maybe a year old if that.. but she only weighed about
4 lbs.. talk about near starvation.

I guess my point in this is even if you give strays a good life, it doesn't
always help.. That's not to say I wouldn't do it again, but I'd know some
things I didn't know before we found Tina.. :(


> I don't see her rushing over to try and grab them, but I don't think she
> has spotted them in the last few weeks either.

Hopefully, a Rescue has found them..

> What would, say the local
> animal shelter do if someone brought in a couple like that? Would they
> try to adopt them out, or do You think they would put them to sleep?

That depends on the shelter.. Some have extremely high kill rates, and some do
not.  The Rescue here in the Village of Windsor adopts strays out after
getting them healthy..  I know that the City of Binghamton has a HUGE cat
shelter with thousands of kitties... So they don't kill them either, but try
to find them homes.

>I
> would hope that even someone from a farm or something would love a
> couple of Barn Cats to help with rodents, while also helping by taking
> care of the cats and keeping them in shelter.

Yep.. :)

>Where they are sleeping
> now can't be that good, and I would think the meager food would not keep
> them going during the winter months. 

Know what you mean there.. I'm always afraid when our kitties don't come in at
night that one of them might sleep on top of a car's engine since it's warm..
so I really make sure everyone's in at night.  For those two though, if they
were near public buildings, they could be surviving on mice.

Speaking of mice.. I can't believe the number of 'trophies' our kitties have
brough in since it got chilly .. I guess the mice are coming closer to the
house, looking to stay warm as well..("Look what I killed Mom!") Lol..

Then, Ugh.. this week they brought in two eh.. deceased baby squirrels! eek.
One was headless!!!  And who do you think found that one in the house first
and barked at until we "removed it"?  Sophie, our female lab mix.. hehe Toby
and Indy, the boys, couldn't have cared less about it (laugh).  Still not sure
who got the "head", but I'm glad everyone's had their rabies shots.

Take care,
Janis

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Dada-1
 * Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38)