Before I can get to the main point, a little back story: For the past seven months, John has been working in Louisiana. Long story short, when he finished up at the university here, I was starting cancer treatments. Since I’m a freelancer, I’ve always been on his health insurance. He needed to line up a job so we didn’t become uninsured, and voilá. Louisiana. However, it’s super rural, so I couldn’t go with him because I need to be near oncologists and a hospital until my treatment is over at the end of February, so here we are. He’s there. I’m here. It sucks.
All that is to establish the fact that John is in rural, southern Louisiana. A couple weeks ago, late at night, he heard a mewing outside his door.
He opened the door, and she followed him right in. She’s probably around 6 months old. She’s unspayed (getting spayed and vaccinated on Nov. 1!) and a little thin. Since that night, John’s taken a number of steps: he hung up lost pet fliers, posted on Craigslist, ran a lost pet ad in the paper, had her scanned for a microchip (none), and contacted all the area vets, shelters, and rescues.
No one has claimed her.
In fact, one of the rescues got a little snippy about how difficult it would be to find a home for her. Some of the calls he’s gotten haven’t been too reassuring. Comments range from implying cats should just be thrown in the bayou to a woman who wanted a kitten for her grandkids but would get rid of it when it got older. (Yes, she actually said that.)
This experience is putting rural animal welfare issues into a whole new light for us.
Of course he doesn’t want anything to happen to her. But he can’t keep her either. Two of our three dogs aren’t cat friendly, for one thing. It wouldn’t be fair to her to throw her to these monsters next year when we’re back in the same house. Among dozens of other reasons why we can’t keep her.
That being said, of course, if we can’t find a good home for her… we’ll keep her.
Any ideas? Know anyone who wants a really sweet, really well-behaved black cat?
Or, if it comes down to it, any advice on introducing a cat to three dogs, two of which have very strong prey drive?
Oh, boy.
Think happy thoughts for us…
I shudder at the thought of ever introducing a cat to any of my dogs. They all have pretty strong prey drives. So no advice but good luck in finding her a home or deciding to integrate her into yours. She is adorable!
Thanks, Sarah! 🙂
I know you don’t need me to tell you what a wonderful guy you have there. He’s already put a lot of time into helping this kitty. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that he can find her a good home before you’re back in the same household.
Thanks for keeping your fingers crossed! Yeah, he’s a good guy… especially now that we know she has worms and fleas! 🙂
Good luck – she seems to be a real sweetie!
Sam
Thanks, Sam! She seems to be very sweet, so she definitely deserves a loving family!
awww I hope you keep her and manage to have them all be friends 🙂
Haha! Thanks, Catherine!
Maybe you may need to keep the boys separate from her until you can find a good home. I assumed you already asked all your friends and family? If you end up not finding a home for her, you may want to google up how to train dogs to accept the kitty as a pack member. But don’t give up! Keep looking! You guys are such wonderful people for saving her life!! The world needs more people like you guys 🙂 You may just have to keep posting about her or do a youtube video ad on her to see if you might get lucky and spot some1 who might want to adopt 🙂
That is so sweet; thank you! Luckily with her being in LA and the boys here in IN, they’re kept apart. If we can’t find a good home for her, we’ll have to figure out how to introduce them… Thanks for all the tips!
There are some pretty good articles and advice out there about how to introduce a kitty to dogs ( and vice versa)if you need to do that. The best advice we got was a baby gate with an opening big enough for the cat at the bottom in a doorway going into a bedroom/office, so they could have thier own space for food and litterboxes.
Great tip, Laura! Thank you so much for sharing!
A Bloomington friend shared this with me and my heart broke, as it always does since I have been exiled from cat land. Just a note on introducing cats to dogs method-free: from what I’ve seen second-hand, the downside is the cat is less likely to socialize to you, but they rarely get hurt. If your dogs obey you, you can teach them to leave the cat alone, and when they first investigate, they’ll get a swiped nose and the cat will retreat to the top of a fridge or similar dog-free item and stay mostly out of range till your admonitions and a few scratches teach the dog to leave the cat alone. Giving it a box and food in a room that’s dog-free is all it really needs from there. That, at least, has been what I’ve seen in other families. People worry about the cat, but cats are not prey animals and they often know how to manage dogs very cannily. This is all to assuage my guilt for taking up with a fur-allergic human and being totally unable to adopt any fur babies myself. Very sad. I wish you best of luck and recovery and a more satisfying work situation soon!
I appreciate the advice, E! It’s reassuring and helpful!
Poor little girl. But she sure knew how to pick the right person, didn’t she? 🙂
Having introduced two dogs to three cats, my advice is slow, slow, slow. It’s all about training. Good things happen when the cat is in the room and good things happen when they don’t look at the cat like lunch. And yes…baby gates are essential.
However, I know that the best thing would be to find her a good home and my fingers are crossed that you’re able to make that happen!
Amber
Excellent tips, Amber! I’m reassured thinking about how well it works with your group!!
Worms and fleas … oh my goodness! She’s lucky to have found a guy as great as John. I’m afraid I’m no help because Rod and I are both really allergic to cats. Good luck, though. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for you!
Thanks, Amy!! I appreciate the well wishes!
What a sweet girl (and what a sweet hubby!). I have three kitties and we quite often babysit other dogs – dogs that aren’t used to being around cats. I keep a very close eye on them and they get it pretty quick that they aren’t allowed to chase the cats. The cats are pretty smart and keep their distance until they feel safe. If I feel like the dog is going to be hard to control around the cats, I just leave a leash attached to their collar so I can grab it if I need to. Good luck!!!