This afternoon, my daughter came to let me know what she found, when going outside to stop a cat fight.
Kittens! She saw two of them, and showed me a picture she managed to get of one of them, in the shelf shelter.
Of course, I went outside to look.
I spotted one as it dashed between the shelf shelter and a couple of bins next to it. That was the one my daughter got a picture of. Looking in, I could just see a second tiny set of ears and eyes behind it.
I also saw a third kitten dash along the side of the house and under the rain cover over the basement window.
I was able to grab the first ball of fluff. It didn’t fight me off too much, either! I very quickly and carefully put it in the cat cage with the other litter. Their kibble bowl was empty so I got some for them. The new kitten started eating almost immediately!
Then I went to get the other kitten. It was quite far back, and I couldn’t reach it. There was a tarp on one of the bins, so I lifted it out of the way…
… and found another kitten!
I was able to quickly grab that one, and put it with its sibling.
After little bit of finagling, I was able to get the kitten that was out of reach. It joined its siblings in the cat cage, both of whom were eating.
By this time, my daughter was able to come out and join me. I wasn’t sure of the kitten I found under the tarp was the same one I’d seen run under the basement window rain cover, so my daughter and I went to take a look.
A little face looked back.
I was able to grab it and take it to the sun room, while she looked around for more, just in case!
It was just the four of them.
All of them, enjoying the kibble.
After awhile, they joined the other litter of kittens in a big snuggle pile!
They are still very nervous, of course, and tend to squeeze themselves against the corner walls of the cat cage. They don’t seem to have found how to get in and out of the cage, yet. Either that or they are just really enjoying a soft, warm cat bed! Even when we checked later, and the other kittens were running around and playing in the sun room, the new kittens were staying on the cat bed.
We don’t know who the mother is. The only female cat I’ve seen going to the kittens in the sun room has been the white and grey that is mother to the four white and grey kittens. My daughter wondered if maybe their mother is Slick (aka: Octomom) but I really couldn’t guess.
Whoever the mother is, she can easily find them in the sun room, and the kittens will be able to go in and out themselves, once they figure out where the opening in the cat cage is.
Meanwhile…
As we were all inside, we suddenly heard a most unusual noise – at least for here.
The loud barking of a dog!
This sent me running outside, because the last time a strange dog showed up here, we found it in the sun room, after it had already killed one of our cats.
I have no idea what breed this dog is, but it was incredibly friendly! The cats aren’t used to dogs, though, and there wasn’t a single cat in sight, anywhere.
From the smell of it, he scared off a skunk, too!
I hoped he had enough training to obey “go home”, but nope. He kept running around and coming back for pets, and running around. After a while, my daughter came out and we led him to the gate, hoping someone was looking for him. We did see several cars go by, but none stopped.
We even tried walking on the road in different directions, trying to figure out the most likely direction the dog would have come from. The problem is aside from the younger of my brothers, who lives a quarter mile up the road, everyone else is at least a mile away!
I took some photos and tried posting them on Facebook, as well as directly Messaging a few of our neighbours. Unfortunately, I had next to no signal. We tried walking down the road in different directions, and I found a few pockets with enough signal strength to send text, but not photos. So we headed back to our place and I went into the yard, where I could get Wi-Fi, while my daughter continued down the road. After I got some messages and photos sent, I grabbed the keys to the truck to catch up with my daughter, as it was getting dark by then. My thought was that I could pick her up, and we’d keep driving in the direction she had been walking. The next intersection is quite “populated”, with several occupied houses quite near each other. We figured, it was the most likely place the dog could have come from. What we couldn’t do was keep it at our place, because of the cats. It was just too high energy of a dog, and we couldn’t be sure it was okay with cats, which were slowly coming out of hiding.
So I picked up my daughter, who had to really fight to keep the dog from jumping into the truck with her, and then we drove off, leading it towards the corner with the houses, with the dog following. We then drove around the quarter section to back-track to our place.
We were coming up on the last quarter mile or so when we could see odd lights that looked like they were at our road. It turned out to be lights from the side of a truck that turned towards us and drove very, very slowly.
It was a guy, looking for his dog! He had seen one of my Facebook posts. He’d actually sent me a message, but I hadn’t received it. No signal. We told him which way the dog was headed, and he doubled back, after we gave him our land line number.
We thought for sure that he would have found his dog soon after, but I got a phone call after I started writing this post. It was from a neighbour in one of the houses in that corner we’d hoped the dog belonged to. She had a dog and didn’t know whose it was. She’d heard of a message about a dog I’d posted on Facebook – she’s not on the group I posted in, though, and didn’t see it herself – so she called me, in case this was the dog I was talking about.
I told her I’d met up with the owner, but I didn’t have his number. Instead, I got hers, then went to message him – and found he’d already messaged me! He was letting me know he didn’t see the dog, and would come back to look, tomorrow. It was full dark by then. I told him where the dog was and passed on the number.
They should be reunited by now!
I’m so glad we connected with the owner. We were concerned that the dog had been dumped.
So that was our big adventure today! Finding more kittens, and reuniting a dog with its owner!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 