Cat Unexplained
The man had seen the cat before, the big domestic shorthair now in his backyard, relaxing. It was one of the biggest housecats he’d ever seen. It would come by and laze in his yard once in a while, and why not? There was shade and fresh water there, and the fence meant it would be unseen. It could take a nap in peace. The man thought it was a feral cat at first, but one day, he noticed the cat had a collar.
He thought about giving the cat some of the cat food he had on hand. He had it because he’d include some of it as part of the morning meal he put out for the crows in the neighborhood. The cat was very skittish though, and the sound of the sliding door opening drove it off.
He decided he’d leave the cat alone, and just let it rest in the backyard when it came by after that. Eventually, he determined it was a male cat. He still wasn’t sure if he was a pet, or he’d escaped being a pet and was now, more or less, feral. His skittishness seemed to indicate he had a real fear of humans, and a desire for freedom.
The cat looked to be fairly mature. He gave the man the impression that, even though he had a collar, he knew how to survive in the wild on his own. That seemed a bit strange to the man, but since he didn’t know a lot about cats, he wasn’t that concerned. Cats were never his type of animal.
As time went on, the man didn’t see the cat again for quite some time. Then, one morning when he was taking the food out for the crows, he saw the cat again. The cat looked like he was expecting the food the man would put into a big bowl the crows ate from. This told the man the cat had been scaring the crows and eating their food.
Before he put the crows’ food in their bowl, he went back inside and grabbed a smaller bowl and the bag of cat food, and brought them outside. By this time, since he hadn’t seen him for a while, the man figured the cat was an accidental escapee; one that got away from his owners enough to make people wonder.
The man filled the bowl with the cat food and put it where the cat saw it but away from the crow feeding area. He waited until he saw the cat go to the bowl and start eating, and then filled the crows’ bowl with their breakfast.
The man reasoned that the cat must have also liked his owners' home quite a bit, since he would obviously return home after being free for a day or two, until he needed some freedom again. Maybe it was a working relationship where the owners wouldn’t mind that the cat spent time out of their home occasionally.
He’d determined the cat had been neutered, so what harm could come from letting him go when he wanted to be free? He couldn’t create liters of new kittens. The man looked for an answer online, and found that when older male cats are neutered, some still like to go “catting around,” even if they can’t reproduce any longer.
So, the man decided that each day when he’d take the food out for the crows, he’d bring the extra bowl and the cat food with him, so if the cat appeared, he could give him food so he wouldn’t be trying to get the food in the crows’ bowl. “Problem solved,” the man thought.
The next morning the cat was there again, and the man did the same thing. The next several days went by without any visits from the cat. The man thought this was an even more clear indication the cat had returned to his home, as usual. He figured what the heck; an occasional bowl of cat food wasn’t going to break him, so he didn’t mind that the cat may come by again.
He seemed to be in perfect health
There was one thing about the cat that the man wondered about though – the cat wasn’t overweight at all. He figured the owners must be very conscious of how much their cat should eat and strictly controlled his food consumption appropriately, as he certainly didn’t look to be malnourished either.
In other words, the cat looked to be big, strong and feral, if it wasn’t for that damned collar! It just didn’t make sense, the man thought. If the owners were so good at everything, surely they must have known the cat they allowed to go free would eat stuff that wouldn’t likely earn their approval.
After more than two weeks had gone by and the cat still had not returned, either to get a free meal or to lounge in the back yard, the man thought that if the cat was feral and not a recurring escapee from his home, he wouldn’t stay away for more than half of a month.
The man forgot about the cat eventually, as the days, weeks and months went by with no sightings of him. He thought that either the cat’s owners had decided to make sure he couldn’t get out anymore, or he really was feral and had died somehow.
Close to six months had gone by, when one day, the man had to repair part of his fence that had been damaged after a storm had dropped a broken tree branch on it. He had gotten the debris all cleaned up and was finishing nailing the last board to complete the repairs, when he heard a weird screech behind him.
When he turned around to look, there was that cat, engaging a rattlesnake. The man would surely have stepped on and been bitten by it, if the cat had not appeared to give the snake something more immediately threatening to its continued existence, and requiring its full attention.
The man backed away from the action, as he knew that cats actually own snakes, and they generally like to be a real pain in the ass to them. A cat will “play” with a snake but usually won’t kill it. The man had a hard time convincing himself he’d simply been lucky that the cat had come by when it did.
As he watched, at some point the cat seemed to become bored of playing with the snake. As he walked off, he stopped to turn and look at the man for a moment then continued onto wherever he was going. Once he was out of sight, the man never saw him again, and he never learned whether the cat really had a home or not. But one thing was certain - he was free once again.
Cat Unexplained © free-reign 2019
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Paw Prints: Image by Petra Ohmer from Pixabay
Sleeping: Image by Леонид Любимов from Pixabay
Cat On a Rock: Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay
Rattlesnake: Image by Yinan Chen from Pixabay
