Feral Cat Stories

It's really incredible to observe the bonds that the feral cats form with each other.


For some time now I've been feeding two ferals that live about a block away from the main colony. I call these two females (who both got spayed at the WHS clinic, thank you very much) Leilei and Deedee. Leilei is grey and white and Deedee is a grey, white, and brown tabby. Leilei seems to be older than Deedee and we suspect they are mother and daughter.


Leilei loves to eat. Deedee is more timid and hangs back. They live under a porch that some neighbors have in their back yard. After I was confronted over the feeding by a neighbor who lives near the porch and doesn't like cats, I've tried to move the area where I feed them closer and closer to my own house. However this means that Leilei and Deedee need to cross the street for their food.


Leilei always crosses first. She looks both ways for cars and then dashes across. Deedee makes many false starts before coming over. This means that Leilei sits by the food dish for some time before Deedee joins her. But amazingly Leilei won't start eating, but just looks back at Deedee until she sees that Deedee is safely across the street. So long as Deedee has gotten across Leilei will start eating, even if Deedee hides under a bush and waits for two minutes before venturing to the food bowl. But Leilei won't take a bit until Deedee is safely across the street.

Clearly making them cross the street is not ideal. I'd like to set up some kind of shelter for them on my side of the street, but we do live in the type of neighborhood where a cat shelter would likely get stolen. So Sean and I have been discussing ideas and design and how to tempt Leilei and Deedee to move, since they seem pretty attached to their porch.


But here is my cartoon portrait of them for new year's eve.