Today was the day...

....that I said goodbye to that orange/white stray cat. And it all happened so suddenly that I didn't have time to feel badly about it till everything was over and done.

Yesterday morning, I was hoping that my husband would just take the gun and shoot that blasted cat. And why did my cat-loving self hope for a death-wish for that stray cat?  Simply because my legs and arms have been bitten and scratched by that ill-tempered, bad-mannered unpredictable cat for the last year and a half.  Heaven knows I tried with that cat... talking to him, feeding him, making sure he had a warm place to sleep on the cold nights, and not even blaming him for the bites and scratches for the simple reason that one look at him told you that he'd been abused before and didn't trust a soul. His bites and scratches and hisses were his way of protecting himself, and he was, after all, a true outside cat. Our special friend Miss C guessed correctly last year when she said "That orange cat wants a family but he doesn't know how to get one or how to keep one."

After the latest scratches yesterday, which required four bandaids and a lot of Neosporin, I decided that without a doubt, that cat  needed to be caught and either taken to the shelter or taken elsewhere. And haven't I always been the one to detest people who take cats and dogs and leave them in another neighborhood?  I firmly believe that the orange cat had been dropped off right here just before Thanksgiving of the year before last. (That's not a typo... he had been here, off and on, for one year and four months.)  For the first three months after finding him on our porch, we tried to capture him in a carrier, but one look at a box of any kind, and he disappeared for days. But he always came back, most likely because of our two outside cats.

The other day, I put the cat-bed that the orange cat had accepted as his own into the largest cat carrier that we had. I put that on the porch chair that he always slept on, and covered the entire carrier with the same blanket that I had been using to cover the cat-bed.  The orange cat knew something was different about his bed and it took him a bit before he'd get in there, but he finally did. I kept watching from the kitchen windows because I was determined to go out on the porch when he was in that bed and slam the door shut on that carrier and drive off to the shelter with him.

I think the orange cat was able to read my mind. He was perfectly content in that little bed until the minute I set one foot onto the porch... and then he quickly got out of the bed/carrier and sat at the edge of that chair and just stared at me. Probably daring me to pet him again so he could re-scratch my wrists. No matter how many times I went out on the porch to close the door of that carrier when he was in it, he made it his mission to hop out of the carrier and sit there to look at me, not so much as making one little meow in protest. He just stared at me with those yellow eyes of his.

Just before eight o'clock this morning, my friend C pulled into the driveway and parked her car at the edge and walked towards the porch. The orange cat was in the crate and he watched her.... C is one of the people that he's familiar with because she has been here every week for the tea parties and she took care of our cats last year when we went to London.  As C walked towards our back door, the orange cat was still in that bed inside the carrier.  And he stayed put right where he was... and C walked over to that chair, closed the door of the crate very slowly, and then put the latch on it.... and that blasted orange cat was inside the carrier, curled up in that bed, and finally, finally, the porch no longer belonged to an ill-mannered, bad-tempered, unpredictable orange cat. Oh my goodness, what a happy day!  And we had all talked about that bed-in-the-carrier process at yesterday's tea party... and here we were today... and it worked!

I went out on the porch and saw C smiling and pointing to the crate... and as soon as I saw that whiskered face inside the carrier, I knew we had to do something right then and right there before my kitty-senses kicked in and I changed my mind or decided to give him another chance. Being that I'd used the biggest carrier that we had, I knew it wouldn't fit into my little two-seater car.... so I asked C if she would drive me to the Lake. It was only 8:00 in the morning, and the shelter doesn't open till after 11:00..... there was no way I was going to leave that orange cat in the crate all that time, so the next-best thing was to just drive him to the lake area and let him out in a safe place away from the main highway but close to places where he could find food.

So that's just what we did, and we were pulling out of my driveway within five minutes of that door being shut on the cat carrier.  Off we went.... towards the Lake... and we found a quiet street with a few occupied homes... no dogs in the yard, little cabins that he could hide underneath if it rained, lots of tall trees for climbing, and woods for him to hunt mice and birds. (My apologies to all the mice and birds at the Lake.)

We got out of the car and I opened up the crate and out flew the orange cat... I had pointed the carrier towards those houses and that's just the direction he ran for... towards the little cabins and the woods. I watched him go, never feeling badly at all, never even giving thought as to the fact that I'd just did what I hated other people doing on our own country road.

The only justification I have is that the orange cat was never mine, I never wanted to keep him, and I've spent the last year and four months hoping to catch him so I could take him to the shelter. Little Miss C pointed out to me the other day that a shelter would immediately put him to sleep because he wasn't a friendly cat... and even Miss C suggested that we just bring him to the Lake so he could have another chance at a cat-life instead of being put on the fixed-forever list at the animal shelter.

It wasn't until later this afternoon that I got to feeling badly about what I'd done this morning. But all I have to do is look at the old scars on my ankles or the new scratches on my wrist, and then look on the porch and see that both Mickey and Gatsby aren't hiding from that orange cat any longer... and I know I did the right thing with that orange cat.

It was a happy morning for me......... and I'm thrilled beyond description that the orange cat is no longer on our porch........ and I'm hoping beyond all hope that someone over by those lake cabins will leave a bowl of cat food on their porches when they hear his innocent but insistent meows when he gets hungry tonight.

And I hereby apologize right now for any future bites or scratches that the orange cat may inflict on anyone else in those cabins by the Lake..... but  I am so, so, so ridiculously blissfully happy that the orange cat is gone.