I put the cat food inside both pet carriers and waited to see if any of the cats would venture inside. The only slight snag was that the door to one of the carriers had to be propped open with a large stone otherwise it kept closing, this meant that if I managed to snare a cat I would have to be extra fast and remove the stone at the same time as I closed the door!
It didn’t take as long as I expected before two cats went inside the carriers to eat the food. One was the female who had been pregnant when I arrived, but had since had her kittens and the other one was a large white male with grey markings. The mother cat was obviously not a candidate for neutering at this stage as she had to be around to take care of her babies, but the large male was. I crept up to the carrier and managed to close the door while he was eating and he didn’t even notice what I was up to. Once he realized he couldn’t get out he wasn’t best pleased and started mewing loudly so I took him inside so he didn’t put other cats off from going in the remaining carrier. After the mother cat had finished eating and left the carrier I had another visitor to the food bowl. To my delight I saw it was the tabby female with the swollen eye so I quickly shut her in as well and then I went off to call my friend Sybil the vet to let her know I was on my way with two cats for neutering.
Sybil very kindly agreed to neuter the feral cats, something which is no mean feat as they scratch and bite unlike domestic cats. She totally supports the neutering of street animals with the aim of bringing down the huge numbers of unwanted, starving animals that are born every year.
We drove the cats to the vets as quickly as we could as they were not very happy about being shut in the pet carriers. It was lovely and cool for the animals once we arrived at the vet’s surgery as they have excellent air conditioning to keep all their patients comfortable in the very hot weather. I handed my charges over to Sybil and also asked her to check the tabby female cat’s eye. On closer inspection it actually looked to be getting better but it still needed to be checked out. Sybil said she would call me once the cats had come round from surgery and then I could come and collect them. She asked if I wanted her to snip a small part off the point of one of their ears as apparently this was what vets did when they neutered cats and it was the accepted way both vets and the general public could tell they were already neutered, this menat people wouldn’t waste time catching them again for neutering. Also hopefully if it was obvious that they were neutered, it would mean they would be more protected as they wouldn’t be considered such a problem if people knew they weren’t going to be having lots of kittens and the cats would be less likely to be poisoned or dumped elsewhere. I reluctantly agreed for her to do this, as I felt it would give the cats the best chance of survival.
Next we went on into town and ran several errands. Later that afternoon I got a call from Sybil saying the cats were fine and that I could go and pick them up so we went to collect two rather groggy moggies.
Sybil said she couldn’t find any problem with the tabby cat’s eye confirming my view that the eye was getting better on its own. Sybil advised us that both cats had to stay in the carriers over night to recover fully from their anesthetic and then we were to offer them some water a few hours later and release them in the morning, which we did. Neither of them wanted any food first thing the following morning when we let them out. They looked a bit sorry for themselves with their shaven bits, but they both ran off through the garden and disappeared. I hoped neither of them would get an infection from their stitches as they live wild and get into all sorts of dirty places such as rubbish bins. Although I hoped to be able to keep an eye on them, it wouldn’t be easy to monitor their progress unless they showed up at the house, but Sybil had given them antibiotic injections so that would hopefully protect them.
Later on that day the white and grey tom cat turned up to eat some food and even went back into the pet carrier, which I was very surprised at, but there was no sign of the female tabby cat and I hoped she was OK and not feeling too ill after her ordeal.