Stray and Feral Cats

Beth Gallagher said:
As long as you have the outside fixture, you can pick up something like this to add an outlet.

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If the light were inside, that would work, but the light is outside, with the bulb and fixture protected by a globe. Still, the electricity extends to the porch, so it shouldn't be overly expensive to have someone add an outlet. Not only could I have a heated bed, but I could also have heated food bowls so that the stuff doesn't keep freezing solid in the winter. Even if Smoke becomes an indoor kitty, this would come in handy for others, since he's not the only cat I feed.
 
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Today, when I came downstairs, Smoke was in the porch trying to eat frozen cat food. I opened the door and told him to wait, and I'd get him something fresh. I did, he did, and I sat there with him while he ate five ounces of cat food. While he was eating, I touched his back and he retreated outdoors. He came back in when I called him. While he resumed eating, I kneeled next to him and talked to him. He stopped at one point and rubbed his face on my knee. Maybe it was a sign of affection or maybe he just needed a napkin, I don't know.

I took it to be a sign of affection, or at least trust, so I touched his back again and he didn't withdraw. For a couple of minutes, he let me pet him full on, and it was clear that he was enjoying it, although there was no purring. When I tried touching the side of his face, which cats who truly trust you like a lot, he withdrew again, so I went back to petting him from the top of his head to the tip of his tail. He let me pet him with both hands on either of his sides, and seemed even to move so that I could reach him more easily.

He finished that can of food and resumed trying to eat the frozen stuff, so I promised him another can. I opened a 3 oz can, put that on a plate (I have learned that cats prefer plates to bowls; I think it's a whisker thing), although I tend to still refer to them as bowls, having fed cats in bowls for decades.

He finished that and stayed there, letting me pet him. I tried picking him up and, while he was trembling, he let me hold him. Kissing him on the top of the head was too much though, which is understandable since every cat I've ever had has acted like that was a weird thing to do. He wasn't comfortable being held long, but didn't leave when I set him down. I picked him up again and he seemed to be resisting it until I brought him up to the door window and he could see inside. He was fascinated in that because he can't view the window from the floor.

He didn't want me to hold him tightly, but seemed a little more comfortable with it than the first time. I had never tried picking him up before, and had only petted him once previously, and that wasn't for long.

Ella was on the stairs watching me holding him to the window, and she didn't look agitated, although I wouldn't be able to hear hissing from the closed door. After a bit of that, Smoke wanted back down. He ran outside, but then came right back in again. I opened the door a crack so that the two cats could sniff at one another, but that panicked Smoke, so I thought I'd leave that alone for now. He came back inside and started eating kibble.

I went inside to see what Ella's responses would be. Not only had I been petting him, but I had held him in my arms, she had witnessed that. On other occasions when I had fraternized with someone else's cat, Ella would hiss at me after detecting it on my hands or clothing, but she didn't hiss. I would have to change clothes and wash my hands before I could handle her after petting some other cats. She was clearly interested in the smells of that other cat, but she didn't hiss. When I put her down, she did her treat request, and I thought that if seeing me with the other cat resulted in treats for her, that might help, so I gave her treats.

She came back out and started sniffing around the door. Smoke was still there, so I picked Ella up so that she could see him through the window. She hissed once but it wasn't a very enthusiastic hiss; it was more like the kind of a hiss she would greet Bubba with after the serious anger over his presence had subsided. When Smoke noticed we were at the window, he looked up and Ella hissed again but again, it wasn't the kind of hiss that sounded like it was intended to be taken seriously.

Smoke finished eating, having consumed more than most two cats would have eaten in one sitting, and he left. Ella seems fine. I don't know how often these two cats had encountered one another when Ella was allowed to go outdoors, as I had only seen them together once, but they were sitting right next to one another then. Cats do have long memories, so maybe she does remember Smoke.

It looks like things are accelerating, though. Since he allowed me to pet and even to pick him up, and his world didn't come crashing down around him, I expect he'll be comfortable with me again.
 
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Has Ella shown any signs of grieving for Bubba, Ken? When we had 2 dogs and one of them died, the other paced the backyard for a couple of weeks looking for her.

Odd about the plate vs bowl thing. My little Harry also liked a saucer better than a bowl for his food.
 
Some of you might think that I'm trying to replace Bubba. I'm really not. Bubba cannot be replaced. He will always be special in my mind. I have wanted to give Smoke a home for years now, but at one point, I had three other cats, all female. Then, I was afraid of introducing a large male cat to Ella, worried that she'd no longer be the alpha, and she's used to being in charge of stuff. We brought Bubba in, unaware that he was a male, because we thought Ella might have something in the way of maternal instincts and that, at any rate, a tiny kitten wouldn't be a threat to her, and that worked out well, although not the part about maternal instincts. Then, I was concerned about bringing another adult male into the house with Bubba, given that Bubba had never had to fight for anything. Now that Bubba is gone, it's not that I feel like he can be replaced, but that Ella is clearly not as comfortable being an only cat as she likes to think she is, and because it's more likely to work out well than not. She got along with him in the past, even though she definitely didn't get along with any other outside cats. He's an adult, unlikely to go out of his way to annoy her as Bubba did, and I'd love to be able to give Smoke a comfortable place to land in the latter part of his life. I don't know how old he is, but he was already an adult when I first noticed him coming around to the outdoor food bowl more than six years ago.
 
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Beth Gallagher said:
Odd about the plate vs bowl thing. My little Harry also liked a saucer better than a bowl for his food.
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A cat's whiskers are sensitive, so the sensation of rubbing up against the sides of a bowl might be less comfortable than eating from a plate. Bubba actually gave me that idea when he began pulling his food out of the bowl with his paws and onto the placemat before eating it. As a larger cat, his whiskers probably rubbed up against the sides of the bowl more than Ella's do.
 
My cats like being kissed on the head, @Ken Anderson . Usually, it is part of the progression of the petting ritual. First, they want petted while they purr, then they start snuggling up against me and want an ear massage, and then nose bumping and nose rubbing, and then head kissing with lots of kissing noises, while they are snuggling and purring into my neck.
If it is a cat that I have raised from a kitten, they have been kissed on the head since they were little, and it is all part of being petted, but I can see why Smoke might think he was not ready for that yet. He will probably get there once he starts nose-rubbing with you.

Also…… I took my morning shower, and all three cats were sitting right outside on the bathmat waiting for me to get back out.
 
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The only pet that I ever truly loved was a cat. Somebody gave her to my mother-in-law. MIL didn't like any kind of animal. When my daughter saw it, she loved it. So, we brought it home. She was covered with fleas, and her ears were full of some kind of trash like leaf debris and dirt. I took her to the vet and had her treated for fleas and had her ears cleaned.

She was snowy white with emerald green eyes. She never got dingy or dirty like most white animals. She was always meticulously clean. She was an inside outside cat. When night came, I would go outside and call her, and she would come inside for the night.

I swear she could understand when I was sad or worried. She always slept at the foot of hubby and my bed. But when my Daddy died, she curled up against my chest for a month or so like she was comforting me. The she went back to the foot of the bed. There were other times she showed her understanding of my feelings.

One night, I called and called her. She didn't come. I went looking for her the next morning. She was lying dead at the foot of a tree. She didn't have any visible wounds. I think she fell out of the tree and broke her back. I cried and cried. I still get teary eyed when I think about her.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
You might be right. But their mother showed affection by licking and cleaning them all over, which I am not inclined to do; so these kitties will have to settle for kisses on their little noggins.
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As I tell Ella, I think that lifting your butt up in the air when I'm petting you is weird too, but we all have our quirks.
 
A little bit of a setback today. Smoke wasn't waiting to be fed, as he often is when I come downstairs, although it was snowing, so he might have been holed up wherever he goes. He showed up just a moment ago, and the food was gone; he may have eaten it when I wasn't looking, or maybe another cat or cats. However, he refused to come into the shed while I was there. I had to go inside and close the door before he'd come in and eat.
 
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