Another Mouth to Feed

I never wrote about this, but in October, for Jilian's birthday, we got her a kitten. A friend who lives on a farm had a barn cat who had kittens. We got it with the hope that it would become a predominantly outside cat, and that it would provide territorial protection against rodents. So far so good. His name is Duma (after the movie about the cheetah named Duma) He has even quit using his indoor litter box and goes potty outside most of the time. (Much to the relief of the person in charge of emptying the kitty little each week!) He loves to be outside.

Last week another cat started hanging around our yard and was menacing Duma. We tried every way we knew to scare it away, but it kept coming back. Finally the 2 cats got used to each other, and have quit fighting. About 4 days ago it started really whining by our back door and was insistent about coming in. We felt sorry for it and fed it and laid out a blanket for it on the back porch. It stayed there the entire day sleeping like a log. It gobbled up the food frantically whenever we fed it. The baffling thing was that it was obviously well cared for. It's fur was clean and soft, no fleas, etc. It loved to be petted and held by the kids and would readily purr. After 2 days of this the kids named him and decided we would consider him ours.

Today, the girls went around the neighborhood asking everyone if it was their cat. After about 20 homes, they decided they would try the next cul-de-sac over. As they were walking there, they saw our next door neighbor pull into his driveway. "Do you know whose cat this is?" They asked. "Baxter!" The neighbor exclaimed. It turns out that "the stray" belonged next door. He was an exclusively indoor cat. Apparently he had gotten out right before they had left town for a week. They didn't know he was outside, and just returned today. The kids returned him to his proper family. Maddy was really sad. The funniest thing about it, is that about an hour after they took him back, we looked outside, and Baxter was back in his spot on our back porch. Maddy was delighted. The kids hope the neighbor will continue to let him outside from now on! I am glad that we don't have to continue feeding him.