Would you look for trouble with her ?! Before she found us, Emily never allowed humans near her (as far as we know)Late last year, Justin came to me and told me that there was a mother cat with 3 kittens living in the roof of his house (which is not far from ours and part of the farm workshop compound). He said that she was ‘very wild’ and extremely aggressive. (I was not surprised, seeing as she had kittens to protect.) He said that the mother cat was very hungry, and would come scrounging for food at the staff quarters, and stealing what she could. Poor thing.
So I immediately sent food up for her and the kittens and made sure to give Justin a good amount of food for them every day. One day Justin told me that one of the kittens was missing. We never found her/him. When we went to the UK for 6 weeks over Christmas, I returned to find that the other 2 kittens had also vanished, even though Justin had searched high and low for them. Only the mother cat remained. She was extremely aggressive and would not let anyone near her – she would hiss and spit and it was actually quite terrifying to see how wild she could get (but good, as it meant no human could harm her).
One weekend Justin was off and he had obviously forgotten to feed the mother cat because it was around midnight on the Saturday night that I heard a crying in the garden. I locked the dogs in and went to investigate. I found a bedraggled grey and white cat (the mother cat) approaching the house – but as soon as she saw me, she fled. I put food out for her on our verandah, and waited at the window as she gingerly crept up and ate it.
This nightly routine continued for about 2 weeks and I began to start waiting up for her. Slowly, slowly after me talking to her in a soothing voice and having her ‘talk’ back to me, she started allowing me to gently stroke her. She had obviously never been touched (or loved) by anyone before. I decided to call her Emily – I’m not sure why, perhaps in memory of Emma, another beloved cat I lost many years ago.
Imagine my surprise when one night, I came in to the kitchen to find Emily sitting on a counter top near the open window, meowing for food – she was now brave enough to actually come inside the house ! She now comes every night – late – for food which she eats inside where all my other cats eat (they are usually all snuggled up for the night by this stage, and are not aware of her presence – if they see her, they chase her away). On very rainy nights, she sleeps in our guestroom (!!) and then disappears by first light …
She is much tamer now and my next challenge will be to give her a rabies vaccination (we keep vaccines and vaccinate our own animals here most of the time, as we have no other choice, really) and then to tame her enough to be able to put her in a travel crate and transport her to the vet for spaying.
My husband, daughter, Justin and I are fully vaccinated against rabies (it was a tiresome course of several injections) as we can’t take any chances with all the animals we have and also because sadly, we had a rabies outbreak on the farm last year and I lost my beloved deaf cat, Bella to it.
When I was in South Africa recently, I had to smile when reading one of the emails my husband sent to me “Hello Darling. You’ll be pleased to hear that even though you’re not here, Emily came for supper tonight and actually ended up sleeping over in the guest room …..” (Anyone intercepting that email would’ve wondered why he was so happy to have an Emily in the house at night during his wife’s absence … ha ha ….)
So I immediately sent food up for her and the kittens and made sure to give Justin a good amount of food for them every day. One day Justin told me that one of the kittens was missing. We never found her/him. When we went to the UK for 6 weeks over Christmas, I returned to find that the other 2 kittens had also vanished, even though Justin had searched high and low for them. Only the mother cat remained. She was extremely aggressive and would not let anyone near her – she would hiss and spit and it was actually quite terrifying to see how wild she could get (but good, as it meant no human could harm her).
One weekend Justin was off and he had obviously forgotten to feed the mother cat because it was around midnight on the Saturday night that I heard a crying in the garden. I locked the dogs in and went to investigate. I found a bedraggled grey and white cat (the mother cat) approaching the house – but as soon as she saw me, she fled. I put food out for her on our verandah, and waited at the window as she gingerly crept up and ate it.
This nightly routine continued for about 2 weeks and I began to start waiting up for her. Slowly, slowly after me talking to her in a soothing voice and having her ‘talk’ back to me, she started allowing me to gently stroke her. She had obviously never been touched (or loved) by anyone before. I decided to call her Emily – I’m not sure why, perhaps in memory of Emma, another beloved cat I lost many years ago.
Imagine my surprise when one night, I came in to the kitchen to find Emily sitting on a counter top near the open window, meowing for food – she was now brave enough to actually come inside the house ! She now comes every night – late – for food which she eats inside where all my other cats eat (they are usually all snuggled up for the night by this stage, and are not aware of her presence – if they see her, they chase her away). On very rainy nights, she sleeps in our guestroom (!!) and then disappears by first light …
She is much tamer now and my next challenge will be to give her a rabies vaccination (we keep vaccines and vaccinate our own animals here most of the time, as we have no other choice, really) and then to tame her enough to be able to put her in a travel crate and transport her to the vet for spaying.
My husband, daughter, Justin and I are fully vaccinated against rabies (it was a tiresome course of several injections) as we can’t take any chances with all the animals we have and also because sadly, we had a rabies outbreak on the farm last year and I lost my beloved deaf cat, Bella to it.
When I was in South Africa recently, I had to smile when reading one of the emails my husband sent to me “Hello Darling. You’ll be pleased to hear that even though you’re not here, Emily came for supper tonight and actually ended up sleeping over in the guest room …..” (Anyone intercepting that email would’ve wondered why he was so happy to have an Emily in the house at night during his wife’s absence … ha ha ….)
