Operation Feral: Success
Oct. 2nd, 2020 22:08![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI got up at 5am this morning to make breakfast, gather my things, and drive Other to Portland for his appointment. He is currently sleeping it off in the Annex, where no one is likely to disturb him but the occasional bat coming and going. He has his dinner, there's a pad under him, and he gets released in the morning.
This was my first good look at him (and not much of that, as he got very nervous each time the cover was taken off his cage). He is indeed a looker, a really dramatic brown marbled tabby with white socks. He's also tiny. It's not unusual with feral kittens, who may not have gotten good nutrition before or after birth, but he's about half size and may not get much bigger. I had already noted that his tail is stunted. The scale said 7.8 pounds, though he felt much heavier. And he is apparently in good health, other than some dehydration (again, not uncommon with trapping).
I feel like now that we have a better feel for who he is, he probably needs a better name. Since the resident house cat is Only, when the feral showed up he was Other. But those names are kind of similar, especially in writing, and Other doesn't really say anything about him as an individual. Given that he's a working cat, it would make sense to name him after his profession (such as Mousetrap), or his physical characteristics (I was toying with Neutron, as in tiny, heavy, and hard to detect), or his habits, like the fact that he's practically a ghost. But I haven't really hit on the right thing yet.
In any case, he can go right back to keeping the mouse population down to a small fraction of its former size and intimidating the pack rats. I'll move the ice chest shelter closer to his current digs behind the greenhouse, so he can try it out. And I wish him a long and prosperous future.
This was my first good look at him (and not much of that, as he got very nervous each time the cover was taken off his cage). He is indeed a looker, a really dramatic brown marbled tabby with white socks. He's also tiny. It's not unusual with feral kittens, who may not have gotten good nutrition before or after birth, but he's about half size and may not get much bigger. I had already noted that his tail is stunted. The scale said 7.8 pounds, though he felt much heavier. And he is apparently in good health, other than some dehydration (again, not uncommon with trapping).
I feel like now that we have a better feel for who he is, he probably needs a better name. Since the resident house cat is Only, when the feral showed up he was Other. But those names are kind of similar, especially in writing, and Other doesn't really say anything about him as an individual. Given that he's a working cat, it would make sense to name him after his profession (such as Mousetrap), or his physical characteristics (I was toying with Neutron, as in tiny, heavy, and hard to detect), or his habits, like the fact that he's practically a ghost. But I haven't really hit on the right thing yet.
In any case, he can go right back to keeping the mouse population down to a small fraction of its former size and intimidating the pack rats. I'll move the ice chest shelter closer to his current digs behind the greenhouse, so he can try it out. And I wish him a long and prosperous future.
