The Kitty Chronicles
Chapter 3
Almost all creatures learn from their parents.
Take us as an example, most of our behavior, thoughts and values like respect, empathy and responsibility, among others, are form based on what we learn from our parents at home. This isn’t, in any form, a way of me pretending to know how to raise children, but it is enlightening to know that somehow animals also follow a similar concept when it comes to raising their young. And no, I don’t mean that animals can grasp the concept of respect or empathy; I am not delusional. But by reading about cats and observing them, I could make the similitudes on the act on raising their young.
A female cat’s gestation period is of about roughly 2 months, or an average of 65 days. Sometimes I wonder what was it like for the stray mother to reach to the conclusion that our backyard was the safest place to nest and have her babies.
I still remember when the kittens were barely a few weeks old. Struggling to walk. Tumbling into the world, playing with plants and hunting everything that moved. Mom was in charged of making them learn to be cats. Learn to hunt, jump and climb. She also had the huge responsibility of feeding them. I have to say, she was a very diligent mother until she wasn’t. One of my biggest fears was that apparently sometimes cat mothers would abandoned their litters looking after her own survival. Our backyard was, and it is still, a safe quiet place to give birth. For cats is the first time, but we’ve had pigeons and birds nesting on our trees and roof. But for birds is easy in terms of looking for food in a garden, they catch insects and seeds all over. Cats on the other hand, is slightly more difficult when sourcing their every meal.
Related and unrelated to my family’s dynamic, we’ve had some mice and rats issues that had been dealt with but it would definitely be a huge incentive for a hungry cat, especially for a pregnant one. The thing is, that while I was watching them, the fear of her abandoning the kittens grew, because I could see her jumped over the wall to go and hunt; while the kittens stay alone for some time. As weeks went by, that time that she left them alone was longer and longer, and I wasn’t sure what the best thing to do. That’s when I read that cat mothers would abandon their kittens if somehow they feel the space is no longer secure, finding food may be hard or if some of the kittens were sick. At this point I have to clarify that I know cat mothers would move the kittens first to a safer place if it was in their benefit. I didn’t know that back then, and it’s all based on instinct. The same instinct that I find similar to how they grow learning to respect the hierarchy of the litter, the responsibility to keep themselves clean and their nests.
Unfortunately, I had my hands tied about feeding them. I know it sounds like an excuse, specially coming from someone who is old enough to have children, a mortgage and a big credit score. Yet, sometimes life happens and any plan you ever had once could change out of the blue. And don’t take it as I regret the things and decisions I have taken that incidentally got me where I am; which, yes, I have regretted some but you live and you learn. So, the fear of the cat mother leaving was very strong for not being able to feed them as per to the instructions of my mom and owner of the house. Anybody knows that if you feed stray cats, they will come back looking for more, and I had accepted the fact that even though it was pulling on my heartstrings not to be able to help those tiny little kitties, I followed suit.
Like I mentioned in a previous chapter, I had been trying to at least befriend the kitties by engaging in some play with them. The little black and white one was braver than the other two, but the black one followed it eventually, while the tabby was more reticent. While, my brother had the same instructions as I did, he also had a different thoughts on what to do.
He fed the cats.
I don’t really remember if I have mentioned it before, but during this time I was also looking at alternatives to the situation we were in. Nobody was giving me any idea or help; everybody, besides my sister, seemed to be ignoring the cats in the backyard, and I guess, they were assuming they would leave eventually. Regardless, I was informing myself and making some sort of a plan on what to do when finally my family decided to do something. Every time I brought up the topic, I was shunned by my mother. She didn’t want to know anything about the cats. And to me it felt like she didn’t want me to mention anything because I had expressed for years I would own a cat. What eats me, and angers me, is that even though I’ve always wanted one, especially a black one, I wasn’t acting accordingly to someone who has been waiting for it for a long time. I kept myself at the margin of the situation, and I feel like my mother wasn’t taking me seriously. And the incredible thing is that I did start feeding the cats because I found out my brother was doing it at least once a week, and I thought that wasn’t right because it’s not like the cats only eat once every several days.
My mother came home one day when there was some cat food my brother put out, she saw it, and didn’t say a thing. She pretended like nothing was there. Two weeks later, the same thing happen, this time was with cat food I have left out, she saw it and immediately I was questioned and warned not to feed the cats, because they will stay in the backyard.
And guess what? I did. Because I respect my parents authority. My brother on the other hand didn’t. He doesn’t, and has never respected their authority. He kept feeding the cats. I was being blamed for feeding the cats when I wasn’t, only because I have shown interest through my life that I like cats. Has my brother experienced any consequence on disrespecting their authority by doing the exact opposite of what they told him? No. I don’t know for sure, but nobody that is being caught constantly with the same lie can continue, if they face any consequence.
I was befriending the cats and feeding them, because in my mind was easier to catch them, take them to a vet for spaying and maybe finding a home for them. My brother in one of the many excuses he gave my mother, said that he had found someone that would adopt the black cat; and all I said, was that there were three other cats that needed a home too, not just the black one. Because it’s easy to find someone to adopt a baby, but not the mother, and to me she was equally as important as the babies. To at least spay her and release her which would prevent future pregnancies. Again, I didn’t know much about cats, but I was willing to do the best with all the hurdles I was dealing with.