Mister E, the *cough* mystery cat
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
Our little neighborhood is run by the Orange Cat Mafia, tough guys strutting the sidewalks night and day, occasionally getting into fights, offering us “protection.” First there was Marty (a short hair, with a lovely swirl on his torso) and Burt (a long hair). Marty wasn’t content to stay with his owners, and, when we visited them to see if they knew he’d lost his collar, they let us know that Marty just wouldn’t stay in. Burt, owned by the same folks, did stay at their place more often, while Marty eventually took up with the woman who lives at the end of our building.
Then Franklin and Molly moved in below our unit. Molly, a longhair tortoise-shell, stays put, but Franklin (longhair, white tip of tail) roamed, getting into occasional squabbles with Marty. Franklin keeps loosing collars, ends up wearing Molly’s ,and looses those, too.
Our neighbor across the landing took in an orange stray she found cowering in the shrubs in the complex. He’s Luigi, another short hair, bright orange stripes, and he escorts our neighbor and us to the parking lot and the laundry, rambles all over the roof, and taught our neighbor’s well behaved black and white cat to roam on the roof as well.
This spring another orange cat showed up: a faded orange, like he’d been washed one too many times. This fellow was skittish, and in conferences with various neighbors, we discovered we all knew the sound of his pleading to be let in in the dark of night, and no one knew anyone claiming him. We began referring to him as the mystery cat.
Christine began to work on earning his trust, food nibbles provided on the roof or in the shrubbery, sitting and talking to him in the dark. Finally, this past Wednesday, the trust paid off, and she was able to scoop Mister E up and bring him into a bathroom as an isolation ward. Thursday we got him off to a vet for care so that we aren’t worried about the health of our cats.
We’ll be posting flyers around our neighborhood, hoping that if someone else had been caring for him, perhaps they could be convinced to keep him in. If no one claims him, he seems like he’d make a sweet addition to someone’s family. I’m not sure Mr M would like to see him join our family — and i don’t know if we could keep him contained. (The last thing we want is for him to teach our cats to roam!)
