Our cat saga/fiasco

I already know this is going to be a long post, just thinking about all that I have to say. How in the world did we get to the point of having SEVEN cats?!? Here goes the saga/fiasco of the cats....

Since the beginning of time, I have always been a cat person. My parents let me adopt Kendra when I was 7, and she was my beloved who passed away less than a week before Mike and I got married. Kisa was the kitten we got when I was in junior high, and I loved her but she was WAY more bonded with my mom; she passed away of cancer when she was only a few years old. And then there was Abby, the cat my mom's friend asked us to take in for her; she was a miserable indoor cat and so much happier when she was allowed outside our rural Inver Grove home. They all brought me joy in different ways, and established in my mind that a house isn't a home without a cat. 

For those keeping score at home, we're at a max of 2 indoor cats and 1 indoor/outdoor cat

College and grad school were hard years to be without a dear pet. There were lots of strays around town, and friends adopted some of them - including our summer subletters who adopted a cat and then asked if it could live with us during our senior year off campus. Oh, Miles. His defining feature was that he would hump everything in sight. Rachel and I definitely weren't too sad when the previous subletters took him back after we all graduated.

When Mike and I finally got married and bought a house, convincing him to adopt a cat was the first order of business! He was quite apprehensive, so I had to promise to do the litterboxes, training, etc. It seemed a small price to pay, and in October 2003 we brought home my sweetheart, Lucy. 

Lucy was the cat love of my life:  She was sleek. She was regal. She loved to curl up on my lap....and she absolutely loved to stalk my ankles as I walked around the house. Eventually we decided she might need a little buddy to play with, so about a year later we adopted Mac. 

Ah, Mac. He seemed like such a touch guy, but really he was just the most sensitive little thing. We spent a small fortune treating the corneal ulcer he got shortly after we adopted him, and for the rest of his life any sort of stress would aggravate his eyes. He reacted poorly to vaccines, and his stomach was so sensitive that he needed to be fed only homemade ground raw meat. But it was so fun to watch him play, see him catch the occasional mouse in our basement, and have him snuggle on my lap.

Lucy generally tolerated his antics, but she was also a bit neurotic and prone to feline redirected aggression. After several bouts of FRA (and the aftermath), we eventually put her on kitty prozac, which was a godsend for our tiny household. 

These two were like children to me. I loved them, I fawned over them, and they brought me such joy.  We were a bit apprehensive about how the cats would react when Rose came into the picture, but of course they were fabulous with her. 

Lucy in particular would tolerate so many tugs as Rose was learning how to give "gentle pets!" They were such wonderful introductions for Rose to the joy of cats.

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats and 0 outdoor cats

In February 2016, when they both passed away unexpectedly, within 24 hours of each other, of unrelated fluke medical causes, devastated and heartbroken wouldn't even come close to describing how I felt. I still can't think about them without crying.

I knew I would eventually want another cat, but Mike also really wanted a dog. After much research and debate, we planned to get a cat about a year later, and a puppy a few months after that. Thus Bart and Doug came into our lives in 2017.

Now, Bart is a sweetheart of a cat, but he also really likes to lick fabric. As in, lick and lick and lick until large holes develop. It was becoming annoying and expensive to replace all the sheets, undies and Tshirts that he ruined. So when we moved to Montana in 2017 and he seemed to want to spend more time outside than inside, we decided to experiment with making him an indoor/outdoor cat, and then a full-time outdoor cat. It was a decision I really struggled with, because I didn't want to cruelly kick him out of our warm home.

Happily for us all, Bart took to the outdoors like a fish to water. He seems SO happy outside, and has gotten fat off of all the wild animals he hunts. He follows us when we go for walks, and loves to be cuddled for a few minutes when we stop for rest breaks, but then he darts off and goes back to his happy outdoor hunting life.

For those keeping score at home, we're at 0 indoor cats and 1 outdoor cat

About a year after Bart became a full-time outdoor cat, Mike decided he wanted some "garden cats" to keep the voles out of our produce beds. One of my coworkers was giving away some stray kittens  she had in her yard, so we decided to take in two of them. Thus Stalker and Racer came into our lives. So named because Stalker would follow Mike around the gardens (but never wanted to be petted), and Racer would quickly follow close behind!

For those keeping score at home, we're at 0 indoor cats and 3 outdoor cats

Sadly, it was only a couple months after we got them that suddenly Racer disappeared. We never saw any trace of him/her again, so our assumption is that an eagle carried Racer off.   RIP, Racer. 

With Racer gone, Stalker started to become more affectionate, and eventually even started to cuddle with Mike as he was gardening. Stalker then started to follow Mike when he would come back up to the house. We worried about Bart might react to Stalker, but when we carefully introduced the two of them, they seemed to immediately bond. Whew!

In the warmer months they would sleep in this little hopper in the quonset, and in the winter months they kept each other warm in the little insulated house Mike built for them.  But even in the winter, they continued to follow us around the property as we did any work outside, forcing us to pause for snuggles and pets with them periodically. 

For those keeping score at home, we're at 0 indoor cats and 2 outdoor cats

We worried a little big about Stalker's health since he had never been to a vet, but figured he seemed healthy enough for a garden cat. We also worried about him impregnating some cat in the neighborhood (where there are definitely unneutered outdoor animals around!) but we didn't know of any in the immediate vicinity so we figured we would be safe.

Meanwhile, as all this was going on in the outside realm, I started to feel more lonely for an indoor cat. I missed having a cat snuggle up on me when I sat down to read, and missed having a cat to sleep by my feet at night. Mike and I debated long and hard about whether or when to get an indoor cat, after having felt a little burned by past medical bills (Mac), counter-surfing (Lucy), and ruined clothing (Bart). We wanted to do it "right," but didn't know how. Eventually we decided to leave it up to the experts at the humane society. We asked for:

-a bonded pair (not wanting to have to deal with introducing a resident cat to a new cat)

-who could entertain each other (so my ankles wouldn't be the preferred toy)

-who weren't highly food motivated (thus unlikely to counter surf)

-and who were generally healthy 

And that's how we got Inky and Theo!

These cats are absolutely fascinating to me. They are SO different from the other cats we've had before. First off, they are HUGE. We think they must be at least part Maine Coon, if not purebreds. They are easily 15# each, and they're not fat by any means. 

Second, they are completely 100% bonded with each other, and really not that interested in anyone else - including me. (But, of all the humans in the house, I am the one they tolerate they most.) They are definitely not lap cats, although every one in awhile Inky will sit on my lap for a little bit. Definitely a change from Lucy, Mac and Bart, who all LOVED to sit on my lap for hours.

Third, they are TERRIFIED of Mike. I think they must have been mistreated by a male in the past, because there's no other reason they should be afraid of Mike. They watch him like hawks and run from the room whenever he enters. They seem to have made my bedroom their domain, partly because it's so high that it gives them a good vantage point to watch for predators (aka Mike), and partly because it's my space and they do seem to like me a bit more than anyone else. 

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats and 2 outdoor cat

It's been quite a process learning to love Inky and Theo for who they are, rather than for my expectations of what an indoor cat should be. I still feel a bit slighted that they don't sit on my lap EVERY time I sit down, and that they have never slept with me at night, but I do accept that they show me love in their own way: by keeping track of me as I walk around the house, occasionally sitting on my lap, and giving me plenty of slow blinks. 

Speaking of the cats not sleeping with me at night, perhaps this would be a good time to mention that the cats LOVE to play (with each other) at night. And since they are such huge cats, it usually sounds like elephants dancing on the ceiling of Mike's bedroom. I tried locking them in my bedroom (with a litterbox) but it was too loud even for me. So now we lock them in the bathroom at night. Definitely not ideal, but it's the best we can do to ensure that the humans of the house all get the rest they need. And then Inky and Theo spend all day sleeping in my bedroom when I'm at work.

So this brings us up to winter/spring of 2020. Inky and Theo are our huge indoor black cats, and Bart and Stalker are our outdoor cats. Plus Doug the Dog. A nice, happy, homestead family. Until...

SURPRISE! Stalker was a girl, not a boy. And that's how Jay and Ivy came into our lives back on Mother's Day. 

Jay and Ivy at only a couple months old

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats and 4 outdoor cats

Bart, Stalker and the apprentices (Jay and Ivy) following us around

By mid summer we were arguing about what responsible pet ownership entails, the differences between pets vs. barn cats vs. farm animals, and whether we had the money necessary to neuter them all. Mike seemed convinced that Stalker already had her annual litter and thus we didn't need to worry about it again until the next spring. But then...

Surprise again -- holy buckets, Stalker had SIX MORE kittens on 9/2/20. As Mike started to add up the potential costs of Stalker having multiple large litters per year, he quickly realized the importance of spaying/neutering. As it was, we were facing about $150-200 per cat (for Stalker, Jay, Ivy, and the six kittens) to get neutered and basic vaccines, meaning we were suddenly on the hook for about $1500 in vet bills. OUCH. But this finally got us on the same page, and we scheduled vet appointments for Stalker, Ivy and Jay in early October.

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats and 10 (!) outdoor cats

In the meantime, however, the trauma of the second litter began to unfold.

Did you see how adorable those six were at the beginning? They were such a squirming bundle of unbelievable cuteness! But as we tried to count them the first time, we kept getting little glimpses of something that looked like...innards? We kept trying to gently catch a glimpse for the next day or two, and eventually we came to realize that one of the kittens had been born with some sort of deformity so that its innards were actually outards. Three days later, I peaked in the kitten den on Saturday morning and was traumatized to find half a kitten carcass - as in, its front half was still there, but the entire back half was missing below the hollowed out rib case. (I still want to vomit when I think of it.) And the other five kittens were huddled in the other corner away from the den.

Mike was kind enough to remove the kitten carcass, but a day or two later another one suddenly went missing, bringing us down to four. 

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats and 8 outdoor cats

Maybe now would be a good time to mention that Rose named all the kittens. She had named Jay and Ivy after characters in her favorite book series, The Warriors, and it was Mike that noticed they were both "letter" names (i.e., J and IV). So we told her that one of the kittens had to be a 3-letter name, but otherwise she could name them whatever she wanted. Hence we had Emily (MLE), Badger, Lion, Leaf, Holly and Skunk. 

A couple days after we were brought down to four kittens, we had a fluke snowstorm on Labor Day. At the same time, something spooked Stalker and she moved the four remaining kittens to a new area in the quonset, away from the comfy home Mike had originally built for Bart (where all the kittens had been born). Unfortunately, the area she choose soon became flooded with cold, icy water. While she was out hunting, Mike and Rose found the kittens near death and brought them all back to Bart's house (aka the kitten den) with little hope that any of them would survive. They seemed more active by the end of the day, but the next morning another one was missing. Which brought us to three.

Mike tried to comfort us by telling me and Rose how great it was that we didn't have to pay the vet bills for all six, but that did little to console us. It seemed like one died of a deformity, the third probably died of cold, but we didn't know what happened to the missing second one. Was there a predator around? Was Stalker abandoning the ones she didn't think would survive? We consoled ourselves with knowing that at least we had three kittens remaining.

Until we didn't any more. A couple days later, we were not only suddenly down to two kittens (Emily and Badger), and one of Badger's hind legs was missing. It was so gruesome, and it cemented for us that there must be a predator around. We resolved to protect the final two as best we could. We had already reinforced the security of the quonset as best we could, so we decided we needed to do something different for Emily and 3-legged Badger. We debated building a new, more secure house of some sort, and then we remembered we had the unused apartment of the chicken coop! 

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats and 6 outdoor cats

The chickens all sleep in the main part on the left.

But Mike had finished off the part under the overhang on the right

and made that into a small chicken apartment - perfect for Stalker, Emily and Badger!

After cleaning out the old chicken crud, and adding a food bowl, water bowl and litterbox, we gently brought Stalker and her two kits over to the chicken apartment. We figured that Stalker wouldn't be happy to be literally cooped up, but we also figured it was our last chance to keep them all safe. Especially since Stalker and Bart didn't seem to protect this litter nearly as well as they had protected Jay and Ivy! With the three of them all safely locked in, we went back to the house to eat our dinner. 

Later than night, Mike and Rose went out to check on them while I got ready for bed. A few minutes later I heard, "Uh, Steph? Stalker and Badger are missing..." What?!?

After further exploration, we found a tiny crack near the ceiling where Stalker must have carried one kit out and then been unable to get back in to get the other kit. We then found Stalker and Badger back in their original kitten den (Bart's house) in the quonset. Seriously. So we debated... clearly we couldn't keep the kits separated, and clearly Stalker did not think the chicken apartment was a good idea. So we decided to follow her lead and keep the kittens back in the quonset with her. 

Then again, her mothering instinct this time around did not seem like the strongest, and lo and behold it failed us all here again - the next morning Badger was missing and we were down to just Emily.  We have no idea if Stalker decided that Badger couldn't survive with one leg missing, or if the predator had returned. But we vowed to do EVEN MORE to protect Emily, the last of the kits. We triple reinforced the entrance to the kitten den (Bart's house), we double reinforced the entrance to the quonset, and we closed off as many of the little cracks and holes in the quonset walls as we could. Then we turned it over to mother nature. Short of making them indoor cats, which we knew would make Stalker miserable, there was nothing left to do.

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats and 5 outdoor cats

And Emily survived that night. And another night. And several more nights. Until suddenly she was old enough to walk on her own and start exploring with the other cats! She never went far, but she seemed to follow us and MEOW more and more every time we saw her. We saw Stalker swat her away several times, but we figured it was Stalker's way of trying to wean her. But she seemed so tiny still! And we hadn't seen Stalker bring her any fresh kill to start teaching her to hunt. Was this really a good idea for Stalker to just cut her off like that? Again, we decided to trust the mother's instincts...

Around this time it was FINALLY time for Jay and Ivy to get spayed. I dropped them off in the morning before work, and Mike picked them up later that afternoon. We put them in "Bart's room," which is the little uninsulated 8x8 closet off our kitchen/deck and started calling it the "cat infirmary."  We visited regularly to check in on them, give them their meds, and make sure their incisions were healing well. The vet told us to keep them inside for 10 days to ensure they were ready to be outdoor cats again, and we took that to heart. 

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats, 3 outdoor cats, and 2 cats in the infirmary

And then a few days later Mike and Rose found Emily lying nearly unresponsive in the quonset. He texted me at work: "Emily appears almost dead to me. She isn't moving and will only let out the smallest mew when I pick her up, but she isn't responding any more than that..." After some frantic google searching and a more helpful call to our new vet, Mike and Rose had a plan for nursing her back to health. 

By the time I got home from work that day, she was able to stand again, but mostly she just wanted to curl up in our hoodies. 

During the warmer days we would put Emily out in the cat infirmary with her sisters, and at night we would bring her inside to sleep in the big cat carrier that we use for vet appointments. 

We made a tiny litterbox for her, and fed her wet kitten food about 50 times per day. With supervision, we (I) even started to introduce her to Inky and Theo. We figured there is NO way she is going to survive the winter outside, so we made the decision that she would have to become an indoor cat. We prayed that she would get along with the black cats, but so far they are just TERRIFIED of her. It's kind of hilarious to see these huge 15-pound cat monsters run away from this little 3/4# nugget of cuteness.

For those keeping score at home, we're at 2 indoor cats, 2 outdoor cats, 2 cats in the infirmary, and 1 once-nearly-dead-kitten-who-now-sleeps-in-multiple-different-areas

After Jay and Ivy finally healed from their spay surgery, it was time to release them back to the quonset clan. Not only did they have their 10 days in the infirmary to heal, but we also needed the infirmary to house Stalker after her spay surgery! So Mike and Rose brought Jay and Ivy back outside, fed them for the night, and we all went to bed.

For those keeping score at home, we're at 3 indoor cats, 4 outdoor cats, and 0 cats in the infirmary

The next day I dropped Stalker off at the vet on my way to Great Falls in order for her to get spayed, and Mike and Rose proceeded with EFC. But all day, apparently, Jay and Ivy were begging to come back inside. Given that a big snowstorm was coming, Mike took immense pity on them and we decided, after much discussion, to trial having them inside for the winter. 

For those keeping score at home, we're at 5 indoor cats, 1 outdoor cats, and 1 cat in the infirmary

We're still locking the black cats (Inky and Theo) in the bathroom at night, and we're still keeping the kitten (Emily) in her kennel at night. And now we're also keeping the apprentices (Jay and Ivy) in the basement bathroom at night, so we can make sure they don't pick up any bad counter surfing habits. Stalker is still healing in the infirmary, with plans to release her to the quonset after she heals. But the temperature dropped off so suddenly that we also took pity on Bart and put him in the infirmary (temporarily) as well, in the hopes that he would help keep Stalker warm while she heals. 

For those keeping score at home, we're at 5 indoor cats, 0 outdoor cats, and 2 cats in the infirmary

Hopefully after it warms up a bit next week, Bart and Stalker will be happy to go back outside again. I'm appalled enough that we currently have FIVE indoor cats - I don't think I could handle all 7 being inside this winter! But I do have to admit that these 5 inside are all bringing me a lot of joy. It's fun to see roly-poly little Emily growing and exploring. It's fun watching Inky and Theo watching the other cats play. And it's endlessly amusing to see Jay and Ivy chase each other - and their own tails. It's also comforting to know that Stalker won't be having any more litters, and knowing that Bart is keeping her company while she heals.

So there it is, the epic saga of our cat fiasco. I never though we'd have 7 cats as pets (plus a dog!), but there it is.  :)