They say cats choose their owners, is this saying true if the cat in question is being fed like a king? As a follow up to my last post, Spike still hadn't been home - that we're aware of. We have a sneaking suspicion, that he's been coming in at night to munch on some cat biscuits!
Anyway, this morning I decided to pay the neighbour another visit. I was stuck there for just over 2 hours! Again, in a nutshell - I requested that she not feed him. I told her that I didn't mind him visiting her for company, but he has a heart condition and he was too fat! She agreed not to feed him. We shall see how long this lasts! The reason I say this is that she told me she had stopped feeding him, then moments later told me he was hungry yesterday morning, so she gave him breakfast! UGH!
So at the moment, Spike's inside, as I brought him home with me. He's pacing from one room to another looking for a way out, with the occasional lie down where he can shoot death stares my way! Oh well! At least he's getting some exercise to burn off all that extra food!
I have a couple of newish decks of oracle cards that I hadn't as yet used, so yesterday I thought to myself "Self, why not use the cards and ask about Spike!"
So I opened (yes they were both still shrink wrapped lol) the Messenger Oracle by Ravynne Phelan first. The card that I drew was card 42 "show that you care". Two things caught my attention with this card, the first being that the day before, my wife and I watched The Neverending Story. Straightaway when I saw this card I thought of Falkor the Luckdragon, so there was an instant familiarity with the card. Secondly, given that we have two new mouths to feed, the card made me wonder if Spike was feeling unloved?
So I ripped the shrink wrap off The Akashic Tarot by Sharon Anne Klingler and Sandra Anne Taylor. I asked the same question and pulled the "1 of scrolls on track" card. Guess what this card is about? Travelling. If you look at the card, it shows a man with one foot on the train and one foot on the ground as he looks over his shoulder at the signposts. According to the guidebook, there are maps in his hands. Wow! I thought that both of these cards were fairly spot on considering what had been happening!
Given that I hadn't worked with either of these card decks previously, it's fair to say, that so far I'm quite impressed! I should also add that the illustrations on both decks of cards are just beautiful!! When you pull a card from a deck you're unfamiliar with and pretty much know the meaning without looking at the guidebook, that says an awful lot about the illustrations!
Okay, I'm outta here for now! I'll keep you updated on the Spike situation and whether the neighbour keeps feeding my cat!
The neighbour won't stop feeding our cat is my issue this week! Ok, so to get the whole story out, there will be some to and froing regarding timezones! The cat in question is Spike, he's 10 years old and we purchased him when he was an itty bitty kitty when we lived in The Blue Mountains.
For the record, he's desexed, microchipped and as much as we have always wanted him to be an inside cat, he has different ideas! If Spike's locked inside and a window's open, he'll shred the flyscreen to let himself out.
So how did we find out that Spike (above) was dining elsewhere? Okay, so, approx 12 months ago when little Lily came to live with us, Spike wasn't altogether pleased. However, he got over it, after all, we did get Lily so that he'd have company because he's quite a social cat! As you know, it turned out that Lily had Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) and passed away.
During the early days of Lily moving in with us, Spike disappeared for one or two nights here and there. To be quite honest, I wasn't concerned. Spike can be moody and will vanish down the stormwater drains like a gutter rat, however, he always gets over whatever his problem is and comes home.
So we adopted two 5-month-old sibling cats recently (which I've not written a post about yet!) and again he disappeared - which we expected until he got used to them. However, there was a difference this time, even when Spike goes walkabout, he'll still be spotted in the front/backyard, or under one of our cars, or he'll come in overnight and eat the food that we leave for him.
So we've had the two new kitties for about a month now, which has been plenty of time for Spike to get annoyed, disappear and come back home. Except for this week, we hadn't seen him for two solid days and he hadn't been home to eat for three nights.
There's one house diagonally behind us, we've never met the owner but about 3 weeks ago I did see Spike on the fence on his way in that direction. I also knew that yard didn't have any dogs. So we decided to go around and introduce ourselves to the owner and ask if they'd seen our cat.
The owner of the house is an 82-year-old woman, she invited us into her house as she said she did have a "stray" in her yard. She told us the cat wasn't there at the moment but described him as a grey cat. She told us that she owned a male tabby cat named Albert, that she had from a kitten and another grey "stray" female that she'd named "Visy" - short for Visiting Cat. (Spike below).
I'll cut a very long story short as we were at her house for at least an hour! "Visy" showed *her* face at the back door. My wife was first to see our Spike looking back at us through this woman's door! My wife said, "Um, there's my cat!". I turned around to see Spike! The woman, who had been quite demure to this point sternly said "No. That's My Visy". I stepped out into her yard and picked up Spike and stated that Spike was, in fact, our cat. One thing the woman stated before Spike appeared was, that she had never been able to get close enough to pat this cat, except on the head. The fact that I just picked him up spoke volumes!
Again, long story short - It turns out that she has been feeding Spike for approx 6.5 years! She's also feeding someone else's cat as well! She made a point of saying that she was feeding them because they were in her yard although it was clear to her that neither were underfed and did belong to other people! WTF! She also bought a bed for him, which is located right next to the food bowl!
It has now been five days since Spike has been home. I believe she has put him inside her house. I should also mention that it was pointed out to her that Spike has health conditions that need to be monitored. I don't think she realises just how wrong what she's doing is! My wife and I are now in a situation where we have to try and figure out how do we get our cat back?!?!? Is it no wonder I've got one ripper of a headache!
