Feral Fables

The first time we trapped, we had no idea what we were doing. My husband, Marty, handled the traps, putting them on the porch or deck in the position we wanted. I prepared the food and set the traps. We had to be a team because I could not handle the traps myself. (It is important to note that we only used humane traps that do not harm the cats in any way.) That Sunday afternoon we had three traps (that's all we could get). We set them on the porch and waited quietly. We spied through the glass and silently encouraged the cats, "go in the trap, go in the trap," laughing and praying at the same time. Snow (the mom)  would not even come on the porch with the traps----she was too smart for that. But the kittens, now about 6 months old were not so wary.

It wasn't long.....Boom--boom--boom!! The three traps snapped closed and we had trapped our first cats. We were shocked that it happened so easily. (It is not always the case). We quickly covered them with towels as we had learned to do (it calms them) and took them to the prepared area in the basement. They would spend the night there. In the morning, Marty loaded up my car and I drove them to the humane society for their surgeries. The humane society workers unloaded the cats for me (they are saints!), I registered them and went home to wait. Everything went well and I picked them up that night. Once again Marty took them to the basement area to recover and at the designated time, we released them into our yard. They all bolted out of the traps, but they returned the next day, hungry as usual. That was in February of 2006. Since then we have TNR'ed over 40 cats.