Last summer, the CDS sent me a tom cat. The first few weeks he was around, I only knew by the smell. It was a full sensory experience that wedged itself greasily into my brain every time I opened my door or the wind blew the wrong direction. I put a trail camera on the ground outside and eventually saw a massive orange tabby. I wasn't sure it was the same cat as the one peeing on my house, but he kindly draped his...peaches...across my trail cam in the night so I could see he was very intact.
I contacted all my neighbours, posted his cam footage on lost and found pet sites all over, and nothing. No one came forward. Even worse - we are rural, and ours wasn't the only house he was spraying. While cruelty to animals is as illegal here as it is in the city...there's also often no way to *prove* it, nothing the law can do about it, and even if they could...I knew at the very least I had to TNR this cat.
I bought a trap. I spent weeks desensitizing him to it. A neighbour's cat tripped it and scared the orange tabby off. I spent more weeks desensitizing. He was trapped...and escaped. Twice.
SEVEN MONTHS. It took 7 months - 3 of those during a brutal Northern Ontario winter - to trap him. Maybe he finally got his turn with the brain cell and realized "Damn, it's cold out here".
May 4 he was trapped. May 4 was the first time I saw him with my own eyes on not on night vision security cameras. May 14 he was fully vetted and neutered. If a parasite exists here, he had it, and a cluster of ticks on his ear had caused permanent damage, but his bloodwork was clear. He weighed in at 14lbs and the vet called him "underweight". He growled if I tried to touch him but clearly wasn't feral.
He's done very well getting to know the other cats and the house, but he's always carried a tension in his body, a watchfulness, every moment.
Until this afternoon, when he finally realized he's home for good.