Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2004 - 11:26 p.m.

I am very happy to announce - though nervous that doing so will utterly jinx it and something terrible will happen - that there is a new addition to Chez Doyle:

Her name is Roo. :) She first showed up about a month ago, we think, when there was all this weird commotion outside, so TB and I went out to see, and this owl was hunting something which turned out to be a small cat - which we didn't get a very good look at, because it was fast as shot. Then about 2 weeks ago, when I was leaving the house, this cat came bounding down off of the hill, into the drive, and thru the gate. I stopped the car to see if she would come to me, and she let me pet her. She was very thin, and I thought when I finished with my appointment, I'd buy cat food, but I forgot, and I didn't see her again. Then last night when I left for the store, she was sitting on the curb across the street, so I bought a box of catfood and looked for her when I got home. There's more to that whole part of the story, but we'll skip over it in the interest of time...and the fact that I don't want to sit here and type the whole long thing out.

Suffice to say, I spent two hours with her outside, and she liked me but was rather leery of TB, and was a very cautious, vigilant cat, alternating between a very lionlike and uncannily watchdoggy demeanor. She would come and twist around me and purr and talk to me a little, grab a few nibbles of food, and then go perch on a knoll or rise and peer down the hill at whatever she perceived to be out there, very clearly asserting that this was her turf. It's actually hysterical to see her do it, because you would swear for all the world she thinks she's a german shepherd dog. At any rate, after a few hours, I came in to cook dinner, and I told TB she definitely used to be a housecat and probably wanted to be again, which alarmed him, because he thought I was going to pluck her up and bring her in, so he said if she wanted to be a housecat, she'd come inside, but that she obviously enjoyed her outside independence and freedom. I pff'ed at him and went in to wash my hands, and when I walked out of the bathroom, there she was, cautiously picking her way thru the hallway, looking for me. So again long story short, she hung out with us all night, alternating between inside and out, and is still here today, clearly wise enough to know she's got a pretty sweet setup here. :) She's a very loving, incredibly smart cat, and I really like her a lot, though to be fair, the fact that she talks to me a lot and keeps pushing her face against mine to claim me does tend to prejudice me on her behalf. :)

I hope she sticks around, and does not get done in by owls, coyotes, or cars. It makes me nervous she's an outside cat, but I doubt seriously she could be made into a totally inside one. She's obviously been on her own out there for long enough to figure out how to get by, and 2 minutes of watching her out there clearly demonstrates she's an incredibly intelligent and quick-witted, "streetsmart" cat. She even knows there's an owl that frequents the big tree in the bend in the drive, because she keeps an eye on the tree whenever she's out there at night. We think she's probably been hanging out here for 2 or 3 months, she's so at home with the entire property. TB is going to put in a cat door in in the wall on the deck, because she has now decided the way into the house is to climb up on the deck and then meow at the screen until someone lets her in, rather than to come thru the open front door. (thank goodness we live in a really safe area; we left the door open all night. we go to bed around 5am, but still.) Once she acclimatizes to being with people, I'll take her to the vet and get her neutered, with all her shots, but right now I think that would be a bit much for her to take. While she's not exactly jumpy, her reflexes at the moment are, well, catlike in the extreme.

The cool thing is that I've been wishing a cat would find me for several months now, as I want a pet but think maybe a dog would need more attention than I am currently able to lavish upon it, and any cat I choose myself will invariably turn out to be a monster, but kitties that find *me* always turn out to be awesome. So I really wanted a kitty to find me, and now one has. :)

Anyway, that's really all there is to tell, other than today I went to the big chain petstore and spent a ridiculous amount of money on toys and other cat things. She is fully on her way to overindulgence and a serious catnip habit, but that's a story for another day. :)

Peace out,
Katie

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