12 December 2015

Wild Kitten Captured

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Cat Whispering is employed once again! It's an imperfect art, but we do our best. 
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Tuk discovered a tiny wild skinny kitten a few weeks ago skulking about our outdoor courtyard. This kitten, of still uncertain gender, is obviously an orphan, so we have plotted to catch him/her. 
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Food is the classic lure, and I set up kind of box trap right out of the Boy Scout manuals of the 1950s/60s, with a weighted lid controlled by a hand-held line. (My technical engineering and carpentry skills peaked at the Pioneering Merit Badge, so I can do a lot with ropes and knots but I am helpless with any technology since the Stone Age.) 
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This afternoon the little kitten stepped into the box, and I captured them. (The pronoun "them", usually a plural one, is fast becoming acceptable for representing a single solitary mammal of uncertain gender, and this usage is being added/updated to respectable dictionaries as we speak.) The kitten was shocked and frightened by their sudden captivity, and they cried and cried. Poor little orphan. 
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We now have the kitten imprisoned/ isolated in our ground floor toilet room, giving them one room at a time to get used to. (We did this drill before with our dear departed kitten Jiuu over a year ago.) The food and water is on display; they already used the fresh litter box; and they are sleeping in a safe hiding place we designed for them. I will be on watch down here for however long it takes, talking with them when they're awake and about, remaining as still and non-threatening as possible in my lawn-chair. 
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I will sleep here, with the kitten food close to me so they must trust and venture close. It's a long nurturing process, but I'm hoping the skinny tiny little kitten will come through.
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Sad Update:  The little cat freaked completely out right from the beginning of a couple of days and nights captive inside.  Because they were so frantic to claw their way back outside and screamed so loudly nonstop night and day, Tuk decided we should free the little cat to go outside again.  The cat was absent for a day or two but then came back for food and hung around for a while.  Then they disappeared and hasn't been seen for over a week.  We hope the little feline survives somewhere.  
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-Zenwind. 
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