{"id":2403,"date":"2025-04-23T13:38:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T18:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=2403"},"modified":"2025-04-23T13:38:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T18:38:35","slug":"cap-snip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=2403","title":{"rendered":"Cap Snip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cOur house is a very, very, very fine house
\nWith two cats in the yard<\/em><\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

– Graham Nash \u2013 recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young<\/p>\n

We have two cats. Excuse me. Two cats have us. No one owns cats.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, a mother cat and her litter of kittens walked through our backyard. One black kitten had climbed into one of our garden boxes stared up at Stephanie and never left. The mother cat and her litter moved on.<\/p>\n

Stephanie started feeding the kitten hoping to protect the birds that we\u2019ve fed for years. One sunrise, she walked out to take care of the habitat and there were now two identical black kittens. We enjoyed watching the siblings play, chasing each other around the yard, climbing trees, basically honing their survival skills. Tom, an older tiger-striped cat retuned to our yard at this time after running away when Stephanie\u2019s daughter\u2019s dog, who we were dog sitting, barked at him. He was happy to be back and bonded with the kittens.<\/p>\n

There was a feral cat problem in our neighborhood and Marty wanted to get them fixed before they could reproduce. So, we captured all three cats to bring to The Animal Rescue League for their respective surgeries. One of the black cats was female, who we named Sam (since we couldn\u2019t get close enough to determine its sex and figured Sam could be short for Samantha), the other male, who we named Junior, after Blackie, a cat that had hung around our yard. Blackie had been seriously injured a few months before the kittens arrived and we brought him to the ARL believing he would be euthanized. To our surprise, the ARL informed us that the black tom we had brought in previously had been repaired and sent out for adoption. The staff called him \u201cMartin\u201d after Marty. Some people have buildings named for them. Marty\u2019s namesake is a cat.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Tom had to be put to death shortly after he had been neutered. He had an oral disease that kept him from eating. We brought him back to the ARL where we were told that the problem was a dental issue that hurt him every time he ate, so he quit eating.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the death of Tom, another cat entered the scene. His front paw was broken and he couldn\u2019t put any weight on it for months. We called him \u201cPaws\u201d, as you have probably figured out, we lack creativity in naming the homeless cats that visit out humble home. We protected Paws so that he could heal.<\/p>\n

Not long after Paws joined the cat crew, another cat walked into the fold. This cat belonged to someone in the neighborhood because he showed up with a red collar around his neck. We didn\u2019t call him \u201cCollar\u201d until after he had managed to get the collar off and later returned with another around his neck. He managed to get that one off, as well. We don\u2019t know why someone would allow a male cat with his balls still attached to run loose in the neighborhood, but there he was, meowing to be fed. Unlike Paws, he was not shy. But he had a broken tail and we were afraid he may have been abused. The tom cats chased poor Sam away.<\/p>\n

Before we could get Paws and Collar neutered, Paws quit eating. We believe he wondered off to die. We haven\u2019t seen him since the middle of winter. Shortly after Paws left us, Collar disappeared. It could be that both cats succumbed to a pack of coyotes, since they had been declawed and couldn\u2019t protect themselves. One night, around 3:00 am, Marty looked out the window after using the bathroom and saw three coyotes walking up Lynner Drive in front of our home. A few weeks earlier, a neighbor who lives a block away had his small dog snatched up by a coyote right out of the front yard. Ironically, the dog\u2019s name was Lucky.<\/p>\n

J.R. is still with us (we felt he was too old to be called Junior). He lives on the deck out back like an alpha dog. Although still quite feral, he demands attention like an indoor cat. He jumps in front of Stephanie, lies down on his back and expects her to pet him. She does until her back gives out. As for Marty, he has the night shift and goes outside when the cat is staring at him in through the patio doors window. Marty has to sit on a patio chair and hang his hand over the edge where the cat can maneuver itself under Marty\u2019s hand, thereby manipulating Marty into thinking he is really in command. But Marty has trained him to know that \u201chere you go\u201d means he\u2019ll set a treat on the deck for J.R. to eat. And he has also trained him to know what \u201clast bite\u201d means, since Marty has always wanted to know beforehand when he was about to eat the last bite of anything.<\/p>\n

Recently, Sam came home like a prodigal son\/daughter. We know it\u2019s her because she\u2019s identical to J.R., and her ear is snipped (that\u2019s what the ARL does to help identify those felines who have been fixed). She now comes to the front door. Sadly, J.R. will not accept her like he did the several toms. Siblings!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been years since we have had a mouse in the house. Now that Sam is back home, we have both sides of the house covered. Along with the absence of mice, we have no ground squirrels, rabbits, ground hogs or snakes. We don\u2019t mind missing the ground hogs, rabbits, or ground squirrels, but snakes provide excellent natural pest control, especially in the garden. And speaking of the garden, parts of it are now being used as a litter box.<\/p>\n

The average life expectancy of a feral cat is five years. Average-wise, we should expect the siblings to last only one more year. We don\u2019t know about Sam, but J.R. has gone through at least three of his nine lives of which we are aware. He broke his back (probably from falling out of a tree); and his front paw swelled up for days as a result of a bee or wasp sting. There is also the possibility he was shot with a BB gun in the side. He always finds his way home.<\/p>\n

Life is a journey. We will continue to care for the people and animals that cross our paths. For Stephanie, this is the definition of being prolife. It has never and will never be about abortion.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Des Moines, IA 50310<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cOur house is a very, very, very fine house With two cats in the yard\u201d – Graham Nash \u2013 recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young We have two cats. Excuse me. Two cats have us. No one owns cats. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1331,1330,1329],"class_list":["post-2403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animal-rescue-league-arl","tag-crosby-stills-nash-young","tag-graham-nash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2404,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403\/revisions\/2404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}