February 2023, a young tortie cat was trapped in northwest Lutz. When we retrieved her and was transferring her to a kennel, she quickly bolted past a small crack in the kennel barrier. We searched and searched for her in the garage to no avail. We never saw her again, but she must have slipped out when the garage door was lifted the next morning. Leave it to a tortie or a calico.
We no longer make this mistake. Trapped torties and calicos stay in their traps until they are ready to be released.
We notified our community about the wandering tortie via its closed Facebook page and saw her on occasion. There are plenty of feral cat feeders in our community, so we knew she had a food source. Then, she became a a regular at two residents' homes.
Two cats become a couple.
Meanwhile, she met Stanley, a male Russian Blue cat in our community that we had attempted to trap earlier. They became a couple and by summer, Tori, as she is now called, was spotted with a litter of four kittens--two orange tabbies and two Russian Blues.
Daddy's freeloading gets him trapped.
While Tori cared for her kittens, Stanley made the mistake of freeloading not only where Tori was living, but in my backyard, too. So I fed him, earned his trust, then trapped him. He can no longer father any kittens and has decided to live where he wasn't trapped.
Trapping mama and kittens became an exercise in patience.
Tori was a vigilant mom. Anytime the neighbors, one being a CATpassionate Village board member, saw her with the kittens, they would try to get a fix on where she was keeping them and if they could be without mom, eat on their own, for a couple of days if she was trapped.
Trapping mama and five kittens proved to be easier than expected.
We decided to trap train in September, setting up a drop trap and Tru-Catch traps where they would be fed daily so they could get accustomed to them. It worked.
Since Tori had established a feeding schedule with our board member Betsy and her family, we knew she would show up at their front door by 6 a.m. On a weekday, I set the trap for Tori at 5:25 a.m. and within 5 minutes she was in the trap.
She was immediately transported to Harmony Vet Care where she was spayed.
The plan was to grab the kittens the same morning Tori was trapped. It was SO EASY. Betsy and I couldn't believe it. One after another went into the traps. All four were trapped that morning.
It was clearly a terrifying experience for the kittens and sad for Tori, who never saw her kittens again. But, these actions would lead to a better life for all of them.
This is a first in a series of posts about the Tori kittens.
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