Propositioned

I guess I’ve written far too much about Oscar, and now Igor, as apparently news of their royal treatment has traveled. Igor’s only been around for a few weeks, but I’ve been writing about Oscar for years. For anyone who doesn’t know, Oscar is our feral cat that showed up a few years ago. He won’t eat dry cat food, only eats certain flavors of canned cat food, he usually eats four cans of food per day, we’re not allowed to touch him despite catering to his every whim for years, and he has his own heated cat house on our front porch. It’s not a bad life for a feral cat we’re not allowed to touch.

Every time I write about Oscar I start getting the emails and comments about him wanting to come in the house. Oscar does NOT want to come in. We’ve made the offer many times. We’ve left the door open for him, we’ve begged, we’ve pleaded. His answer is no and no and no. The only time we’ve gotten close to Oscar is the time a couple of years ago when we trapped him in a live trap so we could get him vaccinated and neutered. Oscar didn’t let us touch him before that, and he has certainly not let us touch him since that time. He was so wild in the trap the vet had to gas him inside the trap before the trap could be opened. In addition, Oscar is a champion grudge holder. I mean, he’s disappeared twice on us for a few weeks because we had the nerve to put out dry cat food for him. Both times he slapped the bowl off the porch and left for a couple of weeks. He’s usually here every day. I’m thinking Oscar will never,ever get over the fact that we trapped him and had his balls cut off.

Despite Oscar’s haughty and demanding ways we continue to cater to him. Apparently our treatment of our feral cat got someone’s attention as Jason received a rather interesting phone call last week. It was an offer that we absolutely could refuse. A local organization that traps and then spays/neuters feral cats called Jason wanting to know if we would like a few more Oscars? They would come already spayed/neutered. The only thing we would have to do is figure out what kind of food they will lower themselves to eat and I guess get each one of them a heated cat house and line them up on our front porch. <———- OK, they didn’t actually say we would have to buy them heated cat houses but I’m sure they were thinking if we did it for Oscar (and possibly Igor – the jury is still out on whether Igor will be a farm cat or house cat) we would do it for a whole feral cat colony.

Jason couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. No way was he volunteering us to live with an entire colony of Oscars and Oscarettes. I strongly agreed with his decision. Oscar is expensive and time consuming enough all on his own. We were laughing about what a selling feature it would be if we ever needed to sell the farm. “Comes with its own feral cat colony. The feral cats all live on your front porch in a row of heated cat houses. You won’t find another offering like this one!”

If anyone thinks they need a few more feral cats we can hook you up. Oh, and I kindly request that you spare us the hate mail for turning down more feral cats. Jason and I have adopted more than our share of pets, from dogs and cats to goats, donkeys, minis and horses. And somehow the WebbPets are always expensive. Did I mention Oscar alone eats four cans per day? We’ve hit our charitable limit for now.

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the sunrise had lots of pretty colors