The Cat and the Rain

I usually take a break from the computer before going to bed. It would be nice if I could go totally electronic free but I haven’t managed that yet. Partly because I do a lot of reading and that is now done on my e-reader. Plus, the phone has games (addicted to Sudoku) so I’ll end up playing a few rounds. This also opens up an opportunity for Tigger the cat to get some lap time and pets before he gets put away for the night.

And, because he likes to sit as close as possible, I’ll eventually just give up on the phone or nook and just pet him for a bit. Last night it was storming with heavy rain and it reminded me of the first night he showed up at our door. He wasn’t feral because he came right up to our front door and was demanding to be let in and he never ran from us those first few days when we went out to visit with him.

But he had clearly been outdoors and alone for a bit. I don’t know how many rainy and stormy nights he had to endure and what he did for shelter. It makes me a little sad to think of him sitting out in the rain trying to find a warm and dry place.

I know some cats and dogs can survive in the wild. But that really isn’t what they were meant to do. We’ve bred them to be companions and to live indoors and they are going to be happiest when they don’t have to hunt for their next meal or worry about shelter. I’d like to think that Tigger somehow got away from a family and not that he was dumped somewhere because I can’t imagine doing that although I know it happens.

It’s why I have mixed feelings about the whole TNR program which obviously swept Tigger up at some point. I get the point of trapping and fixing the cats so that the wild population doesn’t increase but the whole release back to where they were seems a bit off. Then again, I suppose there really aren’t better alternatives since shelters would run out of space and a lot of the truly feral cats wouldn’t make good house pets. Guess there isn’t a perfect solution but making sure we don’t create more strays is probably the best thing.

So I know there were lots of other cats and dogs out last night in the storm trying to find a place to stay warm and dry for the night. Wish all of them could find homes but I’m at least happy that Tigger no longer needs to worry about these things.