I've mentioned before about how we feed some neighborhood strays in
addition to our own indoor crew. Shorty and Calicat have been regular
visitors, with Calicat dropping by every morning and evening for food and
pets. For the last month or so we've been seeing a new visitor - a black
kitty I have been calling Scruffy Boy (or Mr. Scruffles). He has always
taken off running as soon as he saw a human, but came back to chow down
shortly after the humans went back inside.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I went out the front door and was
greeted by Calicat AND Mr. Scruffles! I've never been able to get closer
than 15 or 20 feet of him before, but this morning he was standing there
waiting for pets. When I petted him I could his ribs. All of them.
Prominently.

The poor little guy is starving to death!

I put down two bowls of kibble like I usually do, and he sort of picked at
the kibble. Not at all what I expected from a kitty so thin. I went back
into the house and dished up a can of nice, juicy soft food and brought it
out to Mr. Scruffles. I then watched him do the best imitation I've ever
seen of a furred vacuum cleaner. He proceeded to hoover up that soft food
faster than I've ever seen a cat eat before.

I suspect he has dental problems. We're going to set out soft canned food
now regularly. I had been planning to get my car in to the shop this
weekend to have the brakes down. Now, however, I think the brakes can wait
for another paycheck. It's more important to get Mr. Scruffles to the vet
for a checkup.

Please keep your fingers crossed that Mr. Scruffles will hang around til
the weekend, will let me pick him and take him to the vet, and that I can
track the humans who are supposedly caring for them and teach them a few
things about caring for kitties.

Dan