With four cats we're at our locally-ordinanced limit, and although I'd
take on the world of unwanted cats if time, money, space, and municipal
regulations were no option, I have to be realistic. When a fellow of our
acquaintance, Richard, started bugging us to take his Sabrina off his
hands because of supposed discord between her and his girlfriend's dog
(never anything but friendly when I visited, which was often) we had to
tell him we couldn't ourselves, gave him the numbers to Tenth Chance and
Ten Lives (both no-kill shelters) and told him we'd try to see if we
couldn't find a coworker or neighbor in the market for a cat.

After three months of his pestering, a couple days ago all of a sudden
the apartment doors were wide open and Sabrina left. You have to go
through three doors to get into the place. And Richard said he found her
in a nearby abandoned place, went to get her, picked her up, and she
slashed him all over his hands and face and chest. He told me this at a
party this afternoon, where he showed up having left his sick girlfriend
alone without aide, his hands and face free of scratches and slashes,
and he proceeded to follow me around the place hinting it never would
have happened if we had just taken her, and I'd feel better if I just
bought some Avon from the nice books he brought to the party just for me
to browse through.

I want to beat him senseless.

I know some of you have dealt with ferals, or have caught a prodigal cat
with some kind of food-baited trap. First, when a cat does escape and
find a warm hidey-hole (away from the fighting and bullshit that goes on
in Richard and Dusty's place), do they tend to stay in such places a
bit? Louie and I want to get out there with one of these traps, but we
need to figure out where to get one, and how to use it. From there, if
we can find Sabrina in the area Richard described, she'd go on to one of
our shelters.

I have a very bad feeling that she didn't escape, she was put out
because the novelty of a cat wore off. Richard had taken her on a whim,
after seeing her picture on a flyer at a pet store; her two-leg had
passed, and Sabrina was being cared for by one of the nurses who had
cared for the two-leg. Then came the bickering and complaining about the
noise (what noise?) and the fighting with the dog (they ate from the
same dish) and that when the couple moved they had to get rid of the
girlfreind's guinea pigs instead of the cat. Today came the guilt, and a
shoveload of it; and on top of it, three attempts to either borrow
money, or sell me make-up because "nothing makes me feel better than a
new lipstick."

Please send a few purrs out for a little tuxie girl named Sabrina. I
should have just taken her earlier this year and to the shelter
directly. Purrs that she either find a home better than she'd had, or
that she can be trapped by us or an animal control person (we know a guy
who works for the SPCA and goes on rescues, but I'm not sure how to
organize it for a runaway cat.) And for the people she ran from, that
they learn something about responsibility and priorities.

Blessed be,
Baha