So as most people with young dogs do, I have to deal with my pup going absolutely bonkers at random hours of the day and bolting out the back to yip and growl ferociously at a bird sitting at the fence or a particularly aggressive wave of a distant tree branch or some other random nonsense. This is normal, and is usually ignored, because it’s rare enough to not bother the neighbours (most of whom also have yip/growl dogs) and it’s usually something harmless.
Except two-to-three weeks ago it was because a kitten was in the backyard and could not get back out.
My dog, overly energetic pup that she is, would love this little thing to death. Emphasis on “to death”, so I definitely couldn’t ignore what was going on. Not that I would have, that’d be rude. Also dangerous. Somehow got the dog back inside and spent an hour cornering this tiny little adorable thing and getting it into our old cat carrier. I love cats and kittens are objectively the cutest things on the planet so I consider it time well spent.
Whilst nursing my brand new battle scars (I think I look rakish but my wife says I’m whinging over a tiny dot) I heard a yell from over the fence. It’s the neighbour’s cat. Alright, great, not the same cat I know they have but at least now I know where to take this adorable and terrified little bundle of fluff and claws.
So I hoof the cat through the house, ignore the extremely happy and noisy dog, let the kids take a look through the carrier window (not too close, there are rules), and take the cat back next door. This is the part where I become vexed.
The situation with this kitten is as follows:
- Her mother, next-door’s cat we already knew (and always comes over whenever my wife is out the front), is not a desexed male but an un-desexed female. This was a complete mystery to us and the neighbours until it suddenly ejected three kittens in their laundry.
- All four cats are allowed total unrestricted/unobserved free roam. Outside. Where there is bushland across the road. Where there are snakes. And spiders. And kangaroos. I cannot overstate the number of snakes over there.
- The kittens are seven months old.
- The kittens are not desexed.
- The mother cat is still not desexed.
- Existence of kittens = At least one roaming undesexed male.
This is how colonies start. This is how we wind up with feral cat problems and threats to native wildlife. The whole reason there is bushland where I live is because an endangered species of frog lives there. The irresponsibility of it drives me completely up the wall, and the apathy from the neighbours (who are otherwise great!) irks me even more.
Finally, perhaps most importantly, when my pup goes absolutely bonkers at random hours of the day and bolts out the back to yip and growl ferociously, I now have to check every single time to make sure it isn’t a free-roaming kitten.
EDIT: I got to listen to cat-in-heat yowling for a few hours last week, so more kittens on the way soon I suppose.
