My World: Feline Friendly


Up until 3 years ago I had never been in contact with or seen a cat directly. I've never looked at a cat's eye face to face. This fact I never realized until 2010 when I adopted a cat in the shelter while there looking for a dog.

When I adopted my Emma - a gray and white tuxedo - in March 2010 and Buster - ginger tabby - in October 2010, my life without cats turned 180 degrees.

I have a decent size backyard and a small front yard. When we moved in the house in 2009, we had a sever gopher problem. The entire neighborhood had a gopher problem. We tried every trick in the DIY books on how to humanely elimate them, we talked to people who had the same problems but nothing worked. I continued to lose growing tomato plants. The gophers ate a whole year's tulip and hyacinth population. And I was desperate for a solution.

Then one day I was washing dishes and saw a strange cat running away from my backyard with a gopher in his jaws. It was the same time that 2 little kitties showed up in the front yard meowing. They were skittish and wouldn't want to be approached. We started to put out two bowls of milk every night. They seem to know when we arrive from work. They would show up in my driveway the time I was pulling up.

I named them Gray and Midnight. I didn't see them grow up. I don't know what happened to them. All of a sudden I noticed my neighborhood is filled with stray/feral cats. My gopher problems disappeared suddenly. I saw our neighbors feeding them.

Then my backyard became a halfway house. Many have come to visit for a day, sometimes they make return visits for some biscuits and water. I have tried to catch them but they wouldn't let humans be near them; some of them wouldn't let anyone touch them.

But I continued to bring out crunchies and fresh water every day.

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This little kitty gray I believe belongs to our neighbors. She visited us twice and both times I followed him when he left the backyard and saw him go to my neighbors both times. Never seen him back though.

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Another cutie pie.

My pot is very popular with kitties.

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Sweet face.

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Peek-a-boo

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Not afraid of the green snake.

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Tongue action.

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Double teaming the food plate.

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New kid in the backyard.


OUR WORLD TUESDAY

Comments

  1. Great shots of the beautiful cats. I hope you have had a good weekend.

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  2. The eyes on the sweet-faced cat seem to say, please love me … and how could you not when such a connection is made.

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  3. What lovely furry faces.

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  4. Cute!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

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  5. Wow! Nice but somehow I prefer dogs overs cats!

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  6. Awwwwww, such a cute crowd. And such a variety of colors!

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  7. They are very sweet! Such pretty eyes. You really did become a cat person!

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  8. I never thought about having cats, either, until I moved to New Zealand and my new family had a cat. Great pets and hunters!

    If you feed them, the will come!

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  9. Congratulations on the fixed gopher problem! That's a nice added bonus for sure.

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  10. A very interesting account of you discovering cats and great pictures to go with it. Nice cat photography capturing expressions and sheer beauty of these animals.

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  11. What a lovely cats!
    I never thought about having cats, I am a dog people... but I like seeing cats too.

    In my garden, my problem is with ants, many hungry ants that eat all my flowers...

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  12. Love love this post. I love cats myself and I always take photos of them when I travel!

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  13. Great collection of photos, cats can be such darling little friends

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  14. Great shots cats, wonderfull, greeting from Belgium

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