Thursday, September 29, 2011

Fatman and the Cat: Or the Kitten Bests Dr. Lobo

This will go down as another family saga.

Day One: Mamma Bear is awakened by high pitched meows outside the window.
Mamma Bear is a Cat Lady (she has 4 cats, I say that qualifies her, she claims it takes 5 cats to qualify). Later in the day a tiny black kitten is observed hollering on the patio. Kitten runs under the door to the storage shed via the large crack that has not been repaired since 2004.

Day two. Same scene and scenario.

Day three: Mamma Bear flies off on an airplane (wanted to make that clear lest you think she had a rug or a broom) to see her daughter in Denver. Leaving Fatman and Dr. Lobo in charge of kitten capture operations.

Day four: Rather night four, Fatman chases kitten around the yard but said vermin is too small and too fast for him.

Day five: Dr. Lobo retrieves Hava-Heart live trap from his workshop and sets it up with cat food on trip plate. Here the real fun begins.


The trouble is that the kitten is very small and lite. So lite, that he eats all of the food off the trap trip and leaves the trap empty and un-sprung.


Fatman was once a farmer. So the farmer method is employed by him next.


Yes, of course, he put cat food under a laundry basket propped up with an old hammer handle to which is tied a long string leading across the patio and through the kitchen door where he sat drinking a diet Dr. Pepper and waiting for the kitten to appear under the basket so he could pull the string and capture it.


First problem was the other cats. They like cat food too.


So he replaced it and set the trap again. The kitten appeared at the crack under the door, hissed and ran back into the shed.


But hunger overcomes caution.


The kitten gets bolder and comes closer to the trap.
Fatman pulls the string and the kitten jumps back and the basket misses.


Fatman tries two more times. On effort #3 he is successful. The kitten is trapped under the basket. But Fatman is fat and Fatman is slow. So as he is bent over attempting to extract the kitten from beneath the basket he falls over and the kitten escapes.


Finally Dr. Lobo comes back with a now well oiled and clean Hava-Heart trap and re-sets it with the food on the far side of the trip plate so the kitty will have to put more pressure on it. Success at last and kitty is caught and then transferred to the cat carrier jail cell prepared for it.


So after using a flea comb to remove 36 fleas from the baby cat, and a general clean up we have a five to six week old solid black female kitten.


Day seven: Dr. Lobo keeps the kitten until Mamma Bear returns. He fully intended to immediately take the cat to a no-kill shelter. Nope. We will keep her and find a home for her ourselves, says Mamma Bear (A.K.A. Okiebookwoman).


Day eight: Please, is there not someone person (acceptable to Mamma Bear) in the OKC area that wants a cute kitten?



Day ten: Will someone save me from the fifth cat please.
Please!

1 comment:

Carol said...

Cute little troublemaker! I think the number of cats it takes to become a catlady is proportionate to how many people live with you. So if you live alone, it may only take three cats. But if you're part of a family of four, it may take six. Where you all fall is somewhere in the middle and it could be debatable.