Feral Cat Fridays: A Roll In The Mud
This week’s featured colony member may have been the most aptly and oddly named cat in our colony. His name certainly drew quizzical looks from the staff at the spay/neuter clinic at check in. After all, he was a nearly snow-white kitten. But he was the child of Shadow and we expected genetics to eventually show up.
Shadow had gradually darkened in streaks and blotches as she aged, as if she had been playing in the mud. We expected her white kitten to do the same so he was christened Mud Pie. As you can see from the photos, he grew into his name.
His littermate Scamper was shy but social. Mud Pie was an assertive, unpredictable loner. On the rare occasions he was resting with another cat he might suddenly hiss and chase his nap buddy away. Other cats in the colony would greet one another with raised tails and friendly sniffs, but Mud Pie was likely to harass and chase a fellow colony member with no provocation. The other cats learned quickly and gave Mud Pie the room he wanted.
We’ll never know if his early experience with Shadow was a cause or result of his behavior, but it was unusual for us to see a mother cat up a tree, away from her kitten.
I know human parents who wish they could mimic Shadow’s ability to get away from their offspring — at least, for a while. I had dinner with friends last weekend, and one thing we agreed on was our gratitude for not having school-age children just now. Having to change to home schooling of one sort or another is hard enough, but the on-again, off-again nature of administrators’ decisions is driving some parents I know — up a tree!
It would be very difficult to deal with the current unpredictable school schedule, or lack thereof, whether from the parent or school staff side. My couples golf partner is a recently retired school teacher and she is very thankful she’s not dealing with the current educational complications. I personally can imagine all the meetings I would have been in as we discussed how to conduct a university schedule. It would do more than drive me up a tree – I’d run away from campus as fast as I could. Parents don’t have the run away option, so it’s even worse for them. And most of them don’t have Shadow’s handy tree to climb, either.