I have recently had to question my understanding of cats – and our belief that they should all be neutered/spayed and generally pets – although I realize some are neutered and released into the wild.
We have 3 house cats. One was a rescue; he was very young and was in a large crate in an outbuilding with another kitten with water and dry dog food – no mother. We were told the other kitten was promised to someone else. My husband and I sometimes look back …and we always wish we had taken them both despite our instructions. Smokey Boy couldn’t even chew cat food at that time. He hid for 5 days (came out for kitten food at night and when we left the house). Even now, 12 years later, he is timid and easily dominated by our other male cat.
Petunia, 11, was a barn cat – essentially feral. The property owners had too many cats and were giving away cats from a litter that were a little too old to be good pets. It took her about 7 years to trust us “fully.” She still scratches and bites, usually gently, but we watch out for her. A bite 3 years ago (trying to get her into the cat carrier) sent me to the hospital for an antibiotic for my dramatically swollen hand that night. She is feisty yet sweet – often defending Smokey Boy, but looking out for Newman too.
Newman is 8. He showed up at my mother-in-law’s house, clearly dropped off – as occasionally happened at this property with its pro-wildlife sign. My husband made promises about being stricter about cats NOT on tables if I agreed to a 3rd cat …and Newman joined the household. He was named after Alfred E. Neuman for his “devil may care” point of view. He’s definitely a people cat, whereas the other 2 enjoy their space.
We had all 3 cats spayed/neutered. They are pets, not wild cats. We altered them for our convenience – no kittens, no spraying. Neither of us are entirely comfortable with this, but that’s what we did.
3-4000 years ago African cats were drawn to humans, who stored grain …which attracted rodents. A mutually beneficial relationship developed …and changed over time into the one we have today, in which we control cats’ lives much more completely …generally feeding them processed food. We’re closer, they are under our rule and dependent upon us. They are pets.
Cats are independent, fully capable of surviving on their own, even now.
A little over a month ago we discovered that a mother cat had given birth to a litter of 4 kittens (then maybe 3 weeks old) in the hollow of a tree in our back yard. She had shown up at the home of a woman down the street who has 7 house cats and feeds additional outside cats. When Mama Kitty needed a safer spot, she discovered our tree. My husband saw that she was climbing into the tree, saw the kittens, and he put out water for her and a small bit of cat food each morning to support her. We left her alone otherwise.
We called a shelter and another local cat group, who told us that after 8-10 weeks kittens born in the wild are said to be too feral to be good pets …and wished us luck.
At around 5 weeks, Mama Kitty moved the kittens into the space under our shed. I put a notice on Facebook looking for people who might adopt them. A woman said she would take 2 and I started to get them comfortable with me in preparation for taking them at around 8 weeks or so. I visited with bits of dry cat food and they would come to the edge and take them. Sometimes Mama Kitty was there and growled softly – a warning. One morning I brought out a piece of string to engage them in play – they liked it. Mama Kitty came close to the edge of the shed and looked me in the eye through the trellis. I told her that her kittens would live a better life with humans.
She didn’t agree; they were gone by noon.
I heard kitten cries that night but didn’t see them again until yesterday …a couple weeks later. I learned that a neighbor had seen 4 kittens eating a chipmunk on her back porch 3 houses down while the mother cat watched. I told the person interested and stopped down to see them on my evening walk. I saw one kitten slip into a hole in the porch. Then it popped its head out to look at me. I felt it remembered me. When I got closer it disappeared. There was no other access to the area below the low porch.
I saw Mama Kitty returning to the kittens as I left my neighbor’s backyard.
I thought we might be able to catch one or 2 if we brought catfood and string (to play) and a fishing net.
As the evening went on, I had misgivings. I can see that Mama Kitty is devoted and capable and that they are thriving without the help of humans – scampering about as kittens do. Do they not have the right to live their wild lives? They are not like the 3 cats in our home – under the control of humans, never experiencing the full life that nature provides.
I would be changing the course of their lives, and I find I am not entirely comfortable with this.
I told the woman my feelings and rescinded my offer.
I must share the words on a poster that my husband has hanging in our dining room – words surrounded by images of hummingbird, tiger, wolf, and flowering plants:
“WE NEED ANOTHER, WISER AND PERHAPS MORE MYSTICAL CONCEPT OF ANIMALS …
Remote from Universal Nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the Glass of his Knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and Greatly err. For the Animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, Gifted with the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
I read this last night as I sorted out my feelings.
Finally, I feel compelled to say that I have heard a channeled message (by Anne Tucker) from the Angelic realm – that our pets will become freer in the new elevated Earth that some of us expect to inhabit. They will come and go as they please …and we will be closer to equal.
I wonder if and how they will step back into their previous wild ways. I feel closer to understanding this after our experience with Mama Kitty and her little ones.
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8 hummingbird way 