Having a Cow Over Kittens

Friday, June 8, 2007

Page 11

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Having a Cow Over Kittens

By J’AMY PACHECO

Anybody want a kitten?

I should caution interested parties that the kittens up for grabs aren’t actually mine to give away. They are, rather, squatters who have claimed the whole of my backyard as their own.

It’s odd that a bunch of cats would choose to start a settlement in my backyard. I’m not a pet person. Although I think cats are kind of interesting, I’m allergic to them to the point that just visiting a home where cats reside means I have to take an allergy pill.

Of course, the cats may have figured out that I rarely use my backyard. One clue might have been the overlong grass, which appears to provide them with hours of fun.

Still, it surprises me that they hang out here. At the house next door to mine lives a snippy, yappy little dog that barks at just about everything. He growls, too, and actually sounds bigger when he’s growling through the fence.

I suspect the cats enjoy hanging out in my yard, in sight but out of reach of little Snippy-Yappy, because they’ve definitely made themselves at home. One morning, I looked out my kitchen window to find three cats curled up on the padded porch swing that is, apparently, no longer mine.

I’ve often heard cats in my backyard late at night, howling and occasionally fighting with one another. Some nights, they’re so loud that I have to close my bedroom window.

I don’t know where these cats receive their mail, and admit I’ve been tempted to call Animal Control to get rid of them. Temptation was extraordinarily strong the day I pulled into my driveway and saw a cat doing that claw thing on my living room window screen. Only guilt at knowing what fate would befall the kitties if picked up by the scary white truck has kept me from reporting them.

You can probably guess where this is going. It’s been said that where there’s smoke there’s fire, and where there are multiple free-roaming cats making loud noises at night, there are bound to be kittens. And guess what? There are.

My husband broke the news a few weekends ago. It sent my daughter racing to the back windows, where she discovered not one, not two, not three — but four little kittens frolicking in the tall grass.

Two of the kittens are black, and one is a grey sort of stripey number, which I think is called a “tabby” and would be my favorite, if I liked cats. The last one is a calico cat – dark fur with orangey splotches all over.

The cat that I think is the mother is also a grey tabby, with longer hair than her offspring. She has intense eyes, which she keeps trained on our windows when we line up to watch the kittens play.

The reason I’m not sure she’s the mother is – besides the fact that I don’t even know if she is a she – because she’s the one who stares at us while the kittens play.

But one recent morning, I found a big solid grey short-haired cat snuggled with one of the black kittens on my porch swing. My daughter suggested it might be the daddy cat. It could be a nanny, for all I know, but it definitely has some sort of relationship going with the kittens.

And I am left wondering what to do with all these cats. I suspect my neighbors think I’m hosting an unlawful kitty shelter, and silently curse me when the cats wander to their yards. I have no idea how to tell the people who live behind me — and who I’ve never seen – that the cats aren’t mine.

Ordinarily, I’d just leave well enough alone and shoo them away when I wanted to barbecue. Unfortunately, they’re making that impossible. I noticed on a recent morning that the cats had managed to excavate two rather large holes on the hill that leads up to the fence. Since I found the hill dirt to be so cement-like that I ceased all efforts to plant there, I’m a little scared thinking of how — and why — the cats dug these big holes. If I spoke Snippy-Yappy’s language, I’d advise him to be afraid.

Frankly, I have no idea where this cat collection is going, and how I’m going to put a stop to it. If two cats make four more cats, then I have to figure those six cats might turn into something like 12 cats, and a lot more holes.

So, if anybody out there wants a kitten, let me know. Even better, just don’t mow your lawn for a little while, and put a nice padded porch swing out back. You may be surprised by what moves in.

I certainly was!