Lena came from a feral colony and was re-homed to me as a barn cat about four years ago, before I got Ebony. She’s a calico who has a limp in her left hind.
I got Lena when she was about a year or so old and had her about three months when the rescue wanted their carrier, etc., back. I knew Lena wasn’t anywhere near ready to be let out of the exercise pen with roof that I had set up. But she got out anyway and disappeared. I didn’t see her for about a year or so, except fleetingly as she traversed the property on her way to somewhere else. I learned later that some neighbors saw her occasionally and would feed her.
I argued with the rescue person that it was too soon to let her out and “Lila” insisted that Lena wouldn’t go far because she depended on me for food. If that’s the case, then that must mean that she doesn’t hunt which makes her not much use as a barn cat to keep the rodent population down. Oh, no, I was told. She hunts! She’s feral. But if she’s out on the power lines hunting to feed herself, then, again, she’s no use to me.
The thing is, I knew how Lena had been handled. She was trapped at three months of age with her mother from a feral colony. Lena was held inside “Lila’s” for about three months. Then Lena was moved to a vet’s clinic to the “socialization” cage and left in there for six months! That’s called “flooding” and wouldn’t have done, and didn’t do, a thing for Lena’s attitude toward humans. How scary both places must have been for her! I tried talking to “Lila” about it, but she didn’t understand at all.
Cats have a very strong sense of place and, here, Lena had been moved from her feral home to “Lila’s” home, to the vet’s office, to my barn.
I can’t imagine the vet’s office being quiet or comforting at all. There’d be way too much activity and people moving around all the time. What Lena would have needed was a safe place, a place to hide, dark-ish, and quiet. Maybe one person could come by a few times a day and drop food into a bowl and keep going. Drive-by feeding. But that didn’t happen anywhere and I didn’t get a chance to try it for long.
Who knows? Maybe she never would have come around. But neither of us got the chance. Some animals need a year to settle in.
About a year or so after she disappeared, she showed up again in my husband’s covered wood pile. I tried feeding her there. I’m not sure it worked. Some time later, in the winter after I got Ebony, she started showing up in the barn. I fed her down below and fed Ebony in the loft. Maybe they could “own” their separate spaces and get along. That didn’t always work. Oh well.
At some point, I noticed that Lena was actually trying to communicate with me that she needed something. I figured out it was water and filled up the horse trough for her until I could get a heated water bowl. After that she’d somehow communicate that the water bowl was empty. I tried to check it often to make sure it hadn’t run dry.
She’d come into the barn and watch me clean stalls. She’d hang out about 12-15 feet away. I’d check to make sure she had food and water and fill up whatever needed filling.
After awhile, I started using Temptations in the grooming stall/wash rack near her water bowl to see if I could train her to tolerate my coming closer to her. I actually made a lot of progress to the point that she wouldn’t run away more than three or four feet as I put down a few more treats.
But then spring came, the weather warmed up, and she didn’t need the barn shelter anymore.
I haven’t seen her now for about a year and a half, including through last winter when I expected her to show up again.
Instead, Leo came to hang out with Ebony.
Part One: https://wp.me/p2A08B-pH
Part Three: https://wp.me/p2A08B-q9
Clicker Chronicles 