Strays Be We

Strays Be We

Strays are a family affair. Well, at least they are among the female members of my family. Many years ago I, too, would have qualified but my record of picking up stray animals was questionably good for the animals.

In college, while living off campus, a roommate and I befriended a stray cat. When the semester was over, my grandma agreed to give the cat a home. A couple of months later while visiting I didn't see the cat. I asked about it, and my uncle told me some dogs, presumably strays themselves, killed the cat.

A puppy my wife and I rescued from a service station while stopping for gas on the coast of Mississippi during a rainstorm preceding a hurricane fared somewhat better, that is, longer. With the blessings of the gas station owner we took the puppy to live with us and our new daughter in Killeen, Texas, off base from Ft. Hood.

A neighbor soldier was a veterinarian and spayed her, the dog, for us. He also treated her for worms after the dog threw up a large handful of wriggling worms. They looked like someone had dumped a tin can of worms dug for fishing onto our floor.

When our tour ended, my job shuffled us off to California. We left Contact with my mother, who immediately renamed her "Lady", which was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

That relationship ended a few years later when Lady died while my mother was away visiting me and my family. From the description of Lady's last days, it sounds as if she died from a broken heart, if that's possible.

Since that time I have not personally initiated any adoption of stray animals. On the other hand my daughter brought two rescued stray cats home with her when she came home from college. For one of them she climbed over a high hurricane fence to reach the kitten, only for the kitty to walk through the fence to where she had been. The two cats spent the rest of their lives in the company and care of my wife.

One of the cats we credit with alerting my wife, who was in our basement at the time, that our kitchen was on fire, which allowed my wife to wake me so we could abandon the house to the firefighters.

On a visit to the in-laws, my wife and her sister adopted a stray cat, shared the cost of having the cat spayed, and left the cat with their mother. Right after they left town, apparently so did the cat.

My wife's last stray was a mysterious black stray cat of which we were only able to catch glimpses. But for two or three years she put cat food out for him, even hiring a young neighbor to tend to his feedings when we were out of town.

Despite multiple strategies to entice the cat into a closer relationship, all of those attempts failed. Eventually the cat disappeared and we continue to look for him when we are out and about, but the odds are not good that he is alive and well.

Currently we do not have a household pet. But we do have five bird feeders protected from a colony of squirrels, and a continuous parade of white tailed deer who forage in our flower beds and under our bird feeders.

We also have night visitors whose visits are recorded on our doorbell camera and our back patio camera. Attracted by treats my wife leaves for them, we have nightly visits from a fox, occasional visits from two different cats who appear to have homes, and the seldom odd visit from a raccoon or an opossum. A groundhog hung around for months before he moved on.

So, we basically have moved from owning pets to watching wild critters and birds. It is always a thrill when the hummingbirds return, and we see woodpeckers, cardinals, doves, bluebirds, wrens, goldfinches, and more.

We need animals more than they need us.