The Ballad Of Peachy & Bootsy (Part II)

As discussed yesterday, a neighbor helped me & my wife trap two ferals - named Bootsy & Peachy - & we took them this past Friday to get spayed/neutered.  We believed Bootsy was a girl, & Peachy was a boy.  We were right!  We dropped them off in the morning.

The neighbor & I returned before three (the information they gave us warned that they closed at four, no exceptions! which made me wonder if we didn't show up, did they just let the animals go?), & picked the sweeties up.  We discovered, yes, Peachy was male, & that not only was Bootsy a girl, but that she had been about a month pregnant.  This may offend the antichoice people out there, but Bootsy's litter was prevented from being brought to term.  Cats have a gestation period of around two & a half months, & we had noticed Bootsy's milkshake bringing all the toms to the yard earlier in the year, so apparently there had been successful coupling.  She was in fact around a month pregnant.  Well, no more.  For me, it was a relief - who knows what lives those kittens - or Bootsy herself - would have led?  Hunger, privation, suffering, death.  I felt somewhat gratified that we broke the cycle that Bootsy's mother probably lived in.

They were sedated when we brought them home, which means freaked out in most cats.  Seriously, they do not chill on pain meds.  We knew Bootsy would need more calm to recover in, so we put her in the two-floor cage we bought for Vincent, in our garage.  We let Peachy out, into the garage, & he promptly hid.

One thing my neighbor told me is this: "I've never met a cat who didn't know how to use a litter box."  Well.  I met two!  Oh, they eventually learned how to use it, but not before Peachy pissed on lots of things in our garage.  Not only that, but once he stopped being doped up, he decided to climb.  To climb!  Here he is at the top of our garage:

Poor thing.  The vet said he was three or four years old, & his face suggests he's seen some skirmishes.  The neighbor told me that, once he uses up his testosterone, he won't want to fight for mating or territory any more.

Bootsy (whom the vet said was one or two years old) stayed in the cage for a little over a day, & she didn't really eat or drink.  She was quite miserable.  As you can see:

At some point on Saturday, we let her out of the cage - not the garage! - we thought she was better & we hoped she might relax a little bit.  Fat chance!  Like Peachy, she found a place to hide & retreated there when I showed my face.  But I knew they were safe from the cold & that there was food & water for them.

& a litter box too, if they would just learn to use it.