We’ve only been in this house a few weeks and already we’ve had several adventures! One of the fun things about our living arrangements is that there seems to be an assortment of feral cats running about the grounds.
And no, I’m not talking about my daughters.
My youngest has an obsession with animals. She loves all kinds, but especially anything in the cat family—lions, tigers, and cheetahs oh my! While the wild cats are her favourites, she does love house cats. The appearance of the five or six little church cats running around the cemetery or sitting on the porch or darting through the back yard has been so exciting to her! She keeps asking if she can go out and pet one, ever so disappointed when we tell her it’s not safe to pet a wild cat.
Today, while I was making lunch, the girls came bursting through the back door.
“Mommy!” my youngest was near tears and I thought for a second that she had been hurt. “There’s a church cat stuck behind the fence!”
“He’s probably not stuck, honey. He’s probably just sitting in the sunny spot.”
“No, Mom! He’s in so much danger!”
There was a frantic urgency in her blue eyes as she dragged me outside. I could hear the sad little meowing coming from behind the fence as she brought me to the spot. This little black cat had pulled a bag of garbage into the shrubbery between our fence and the following parking lot and has his head stuck in one of the little plastic bags for Costco chicken. The poor thing couldn’t figure out how to get out and was stumbling to and fro, crying miserably. If it hadn’t been so dangerous for him, it would’ve been almost funny.
“We have to save him!” my little animal rescuer pleaded.
One of the things about my youngest is that she’s very impulsive. Most of the time, if a thought crosses her head, she just does it. But she thought this through. I ran out of the yard and told her to stay behind the fence and keep an eye on the kitty. “Right, so I won’t get scratched by a wild cat. Be careful, Mommy!” I was surprised and so delighted by her obedience!
I was able to approach the cat easy, he didn’t even try to run away. Plucking the bag off his head was also easy and then he ran off a few feet and stood there, yelling at me with all the indignation in the world, while my daughter cried in relief on the other side of the fence.
It was a very exciting afternoon for us! The girls were very hopeful that now the little black church cat will be our friend, since we saved his life. And they’ve decided to call him Chicken Wing, because he was stuck in a chicken packet.
Becoming Still Waters 