**Warning...very long post.***
We are Americans living in Italy. Yes, I know it sounds like a dream, but life is rarely lived as in a dream.
I love it here. I am reminded of what life was like when I was growing up, with a sense of community and wholesomeness I have missed for a very long time. And the food is natural and wonderful, the air is clean, the water is potable and it is nearly impossible to find a bad wine.
There are difficulties, such as learning an entirely new language, dealing with Italian bureaucracy and, for the time being, getting along without a car. Add to that the usual complaints of someone getting older, complete with aches and pains and mounting fatigue. It does, however, seem that people live quite a long time here.
We did a brief sojourn in New Jersey in an “adult community.” Lovely house, nice little garden, a “gym” of sorts. But the day we moved in and a neighbor described it as “God’s waiting room” did not precisely fill my heart with warmth and affection for the place. Being surrounded by old people gets old very quickly! And the rules they had! We’re adults, right? I can’t grow a vegetable? I can’t decide what color to paint my shutters? I can’t bring my adult daughter to the gym with me? I chafed at their arbitrary rules, the way they were rampantly cutting down trees and the daily anticipation of finding out who died recently. It felt very isolating and depressing.
Here, we live in a hill town of approximately twelve thousand people. A town built atop a hill starting in the 12th Century and continuing through the 16th...and today. A central town of ancient churches, monasteries, buildings and “terra cotta” homes made of stone and brick, with cobblestone streets that wind this way and that. It is not “booming” by any means, in fact, the economy is struggling, yet the town bustles by day and evening, with a long “pranzo” (lunch…the main meal of Italians) in the middle of the day. It is a town populated by old and young and everyone in between, which, to me, is the way people ought to live.
In my fantasy, before we actually got here, I pictured us having a cat or two. But my husband was adamant, “No more cats! We’re done with cats!” He didn’t ever want to clean a litter box again, or smell one.
Yes, I pictured la bella vita, sitting on a bench with a glass of wine in the cortile (courtyard) with the outer door open and the afternoon sun streaming in, and a kitty schmoozing around my ankles. Just an easy life with good food, clean water and no appointments to keep. That was the dream.
The reality was that there is a burgeoning feral cat population, particularly in our piazza, possibly because we are near a walkway that has some woods and greenery, also possibly because there are nooks and crannies and openings to vacant spaces where these cats can hide, stay relatively warm and sleep.
One day last spring, three tiny kittens appeared beneath the window or our neighbors across the street. My neighbor, Marguerite, told me that she and her husband, Tony, feed the cats what they can. She also said that Tony had placed some boxes for comfort inside various nooks for the cats to use as shelters and beds.
I noticed these kittens nearly every day, two little gray striped ones and one entirely black. I was also able to identify their mother. Another lady down the block and around the bend of a small alley fed them, too. I ached for these little babies.
We had our outer door restored by our other neighbor, Domenico. In order for him to do the job, he removed the entire door...which is 600 years old and in four or five parts.
This left our cortile (courtyard, pronounced core-tee-lay) wide open and the little ones wandered in. I didn’t say a word. My husband (“No more cats!”) set up a cardboard box with an old towel in it. Sure enough, the kittens, and Mamma, used it to nap in.
So, what followed, of course, was some food. Just dry kibble. But, well, the pet food here is relatively inexpensive compared to the U.S., so they soon also got some “meatballs in gravy.” And names, they got names. Not wonderful names, just some way to differentiate one from the other.
Mamma was a no-brainer. One tiny kitten had already been injured somehow, possibly by a larger cat. Her eye looked awful. We called her “Pirate.” The little black one was fierce about food, sometimes smacking the litter mates in order to hog the food. “Incubo” means nightmare in Italian, and that got shortened to Ink. The third kitten had a chubby little chowder face…seemingly unkempt in a terribly cute way. Scruff. La famiglia
.
Things became problematic when the outer door was finished and reinstalled. Well, the lady around the corner and Marguerite were feeding them, so…I started carting a tray outside each day. Oh, dear.
Sibling from a previous litter joined the gang as a regular. Sib was very timid and skittish, but Sib would hang with Mamma and the kittens and soon got into the routine.
There was another black cat, there were other interlopers from time to time, but this was the core group.
(Baby Scruff)
At about three months of age, the babies trusted me enough that we were able to get Pirate to the veterinarian. The prognosis was not good. “The eye is lost.” She was very weak, breathing hard, too thin….back “home” she had some water, just a little, a half-hearted bite of food and settled down on our doormat inside the cortile as she basked in the sun and gazed upon the piazza. I believe she died that day or the next. We never saw her again
Little Scruff also had an eye problem, in both eyes. They were very goopy, with green and/or yellow goop, sometimes glued shut. I was able to administer antibiotic eye drops. He got so comfortable with me and the drops, I could do it just lifting his little head up…giving each eye a little wipe with a clean tissue, and he would happily go back to eating.
After his eyes recuperated, Scruff and I really bonded. I confess, I was beginning to adore this cat, this plain, ordinary little street urchin. Just a little gray, striped kitty with a funny face, nothing special. Except he let me pet him, and pick him up, and he learned his name, and he began purring and then he would schmooze my legs and lean into a head pet. I was smitten, but “No more cats!”
Well, it was soon apparent that the other black cat had had kittens. We were walking with Harry on the passaggiata (walkway) and there was black Mamma, tucked in a doorway of a vacant building, and three little heads popped up in the grass. Each one was cuter than the other. There was a tabby, a soft gray one with a white bib and a tuxedo kitten, black and white.
It was not long before this family, too, came to dinner every evening. Now, instead of four, we had eight. Sometimes ten, depending on how many rogues showed up.
Clearly, there is problem here. I asked around. “Does this town have any program for neutering ferals?” No. Nothing.
I began to talk about it to my husband and was relieved and surprised when he agreed that we could get as many of them neutered as possible. But how? How? I said, well, the kittens are easy because they let me handle them, but they aren’t old enough yet. The thing is to get them to trust us, and they are doing that because they get fed regularly.
Feeding time also morphed into play time. I made a couple of aluminum foil balls that the kittens loved to smack around the cortile after they ate. We set Harry’s airplane travel kennel out in the cortile and put a couple of boxes inside and sometimes one or two of them would nap there, other times they would just play by sticking their paws through the openings, baiting whoever was outside.
As far as the older ones, like Mamma and Sib, who would never let me touch them, I ordered a Hav-A-Hart trap from the U.S. It is used for wild animals and also feral cats. There is a trip inside for the door, so the cat enters to get food, steps on the trip and the door closes behind them. Bam! Then they can’t get out.
We had settled into rather enjoyable routines throughout the Spring, Summer and into the Fall, received and figured out the trap, and we had a plan with the veterinarian. The veterinarian was all for the plan because he said that besides their lives being hard and miserable, pretty soon we were going to have a hundred cats in our little piazza. Cats here have three litters a year. Three litters, say with three kittens…that’s nine kittens from one cat. Every year. Just after the holidays we were getting ready to implement “the plan.”
That is when the police showed up at our door.
I didn’t go out, thinking it was just a delivery, but it was taking a very long time. I heard my husband talking to someone, but that often happens if we see a neighbor outside. When he came inside he said that there were three people at the door, the police captain (!!), a “vigili”…a lower level official of some sort…and an unfriendly neighbor who is an attorney and lives two doors down from us.
He said the attorney wouldn’t shut up, appeared very angry and was talking over the “vigili” who was more or less speaking while looking at the ground and the police officer seemed uncomfortable and bored. Because two people were speaking at the same time it was very difficult, near impossible to figure out what they were saying. “Gatti”…”cani”….cats, dogs…poop in the street. Bottom line….don’t feed the cats anymore.
Another problem here, while on the subject of poop in the street, is that people do not pick up after their dogs. The town even installed “dog drops”…separate green “eco” drops for dog poop, but still people don’t bother. We do. We have always picked up after Harry. Everyone in this piazza, possibly the town, knows it, too. They certainly see us enough.
That being said, yes, the cats were pooping in the piazza. Two points here…there have ALWAYS been feral cats in this piazza. Second, there has ALWAYS been someone around to feed them.
And while this trio also knocked on the doors of our friends across the street, and Domenico, who has nothing at all to do with it, and the other lady down the block, it felt very much like we were being singled out for a reprimand because we are foreigners.
After this incident, Domenico came over to assure us we were “not in trouble” and that this guy is a “bad neighbor.” Yes, well, we knew that…who calls the police over something like this? Why not just talk to us? My husband was periodically cleaning up the messes from the cats, too…….not that anyone screaming at our door was interested in that tidbit.
Later, Tony and Marguerite came over to assure us of the same. Then Marguerite promised to help us with “the plan” by driving us to the veterinarian. (It is a rather long walk, especially if you are carrying something.) THAT was the most wonderful thing!
They also said that they were going to continue to feed the cats….and so was the lady down the street. So, we did, too…under cover of darkness…down an alley…on a piece of newspaper…so there was no evidence in the morning and then we threw the paper away.
At this point, initiating “the plan” seemed to take on a new urgency. Also, large, rogue, prowling male cats were showing up. The next mating season was fast approaching
.
After a week or so of sneaking out after dark, we started to feed the ferals in the cortile. They trusted us enough that I could close the outer door while they ate inside. No one could see them.
One evening a newbie showed up. This cat looked vaguely familiar. She walked with her tail high, so I could see she was female. She walked right in like she already knew everyone. Right away, she let me pet her. This was very strange. Then I recalled the third of the black mamma’s litter – the tortoise shell kitten. Where had she been? Why was she here?
Observing her the following days, I had the distinct impression she was going into “heat.” She would sidle up to Scruff, who was indifferent to her advances. She would sidle up to me, she would sidle up to Harry. And she started to try and stay inside after all the others had eaten and decided it was time to hit the streets again.
Tee
I kept telling my husband this cat was not feral, not like the others. Had someone taken her in and then decided to dump her? I don’t know why…but she won him over. Not only that, he said to me, out of the blue one evening, “Well, if we get a large enough enclosure, we could keep three cats in the back room.” ???? Three? Three cats? Mr. “No more cats!” said we could keep three? Be still my heart!!!
We moved Harrys kennel back inside, to the back room, set up the water and food dishes and a small cat pan. T.S. (Tortoise Shell) got shortened to Tee, Missy Tee, Tee-Tee. And she loved it inside. She was tired, she was hungry and she was very, very affectionate.
She also had terrible, terrible diarrhea. Each of us would have to get up in the middle of the night at some point and clean her pan, the odor was horrendous and wafted throughout the entire apartment.
There is an over-the-counter deworming treatment here, which I quickly bought. It requires two administrations, two weeks apart. It is also recommended that it be repeated after two months. After her second dose, Tee’s condition improved and we were able to sleep through the night again.
Once she seemed rested and healthy enough, we walked her to the vet for spaying because I didn’t want to bother Marguerite since we were going to keep little Missy Tee and we could carry her in a nice, lightweight over the shoulder cat carrier. Tee came home to recuperate in the kennel and all was well.
I ordered a cat “playpen.” It is as tall as I am, with four front doors, two up and two down, three “perches” and I added a cat hammock. Tee was so happy to be in this little cat palace, loving her soft perches and her hammock.
Being January, in this part of Italy, it can get cold. We hadn’t had any snow, but there were nights that the temperatures dropped to freezing. One such night, one of the predatory male cats was outside, terrorizing Scruff. I was worried and beside myself. I heard howling.
I was in the living room when the door opened and my husband marched in carrying Scruff into the house! Scruffy! My boy! He went into the kennel, Tee’s former digs. Poor, sweet Scruff seemed exhausted. Was he in shock or just totally spent? He ate and slept for an entire weekBy this time, we were letting Tee out of the playpen to explore the house, to be more of a normal cat. I tried to coax Scruff out of the kennel but he wanted no part of it. He even closed the kennel door on himself. “No thanks! I’m good, right here.”
We walked him to the veterinarian, too, got him neutered and dewormed. Scruff was on his way from being the “Prince of the Piazza” to being a pampered indoor kitty.
Scruff 10 mos.
We had another unexpected addition, and luckily we had an additional cage.
While I was feeding the usual suspects in the cortile, little Demon came in, too. Demon, when a baby kitten, was a gigantic loudmouth. When I walked outside with the food last summer he would wail and echo through the piazza. He made it hard for me to move because he also tried to climb up my legs! Hence, the name “Demon.” He’s a “tuxedo” cat, black and white and oh, so cute. I noticed in the fall that his breathing had become labored. He had a loss of appetite, too. Thoughts of helping him flew out the window because he would not, under any circumstances, let me touch him, not even when he was eating.
This particular night was miserable in every way… cold, windy and rainy. Demon came in, sniffed at the food but just sat by the others. In spite of the weather, the regulars all wanted out when they were done eating. Not Demon. He was looking for a place to hide. In my mind, I wondered if he was looking for a place to curl up and die.
To my surprise, as he huddled in a corner, he let me approach him. He let me pet his tiny head. He let me pick him up. I believe he had given up, just given up and was totally spent. I rushed into the house, my husband quickly got the new cage ready and we decided we would do what we could in spite of him looking, at this point, like a hospice case. I was able to interest him in some wet food and was somewhat amazed he even made it through the night.
We transported him to the vet as soon as possible and were told he has severe asthma. It is a type of asthma that is common in street cats and caused by a transmittable virus. The doctor gave us some steroid medication to give him. Each small pill had to be cut into 1/8. Honestly, it was just a speck. But, this cat maybe weighed a pound…he is half the size he should be for his age and nothing but bones.
After a week and a half of medication we brought him back. The doctor told us he was only slightly better and had us try another medication along with the steroid on a strict schedule. He was also put on a stronger worm medicine as he was eating well but still horribly skinny. I started keeping a daily calendar
.
In the meantime, we trapped Mamma, Ink and Scruff’s mother. Marguerite drove us to the doctor and everything went smoothly, except Mamma was not happy at all. She cried constantly, all day, all night with small respites when she finally drifted off to sleep.
She was desperate to be released and after three days, we took the cage to the outer door and off she went like a streak.
She and Ink and Sib, however, returned for dinner!
The next catch was Calze. He is soft gray with a white bib and white feet. Calze means “socks” or “stockings” in Italian. He was so easy I barely remember it. No fuss, no fight. Easy.
His recuperation was easy, too. No dramatics, no crying, just a happy little guy loving getting regular meals and sleeping someplace comfy and warm. Sooooooooooooo, we wondered about releasing him. We decided not to. Three indoor cats became four. And it’s not my fault. It wasn’t even my idea!
At this point, Demon was showing mild improvement and I just could not saddle him with that moniker anymore. Demon morphed into Imp. Now that his eyes were brighter, he was finding his voice again and wanting some affection, Imp seemed to suit this tiny tuxedo very well.
Imp
The last to be trapped was Ink. And although she did not raise a ruckus for 3 days, she was the most difficult of all. It took four of us fifteen minutes to maneuver her in the cage to a point where the doctor could sedate her. She was screaming, all claws extended, trying to bite anything she could. It was a nightmare, alright.
After that, though, she settled into reluctant recuperation. And she, like Mamma, returned for her dinner after being released.
Scruff frightened us one evening with an episode of difficult breathing and a cough. He, too, has asthma, but not as severe as Imp. He is on a Lysine supplement and has improved very nicely.
We are still waiting for another large playpen cage, but in the meantime, the little gang has begun to settle into a bit of a routine. First thing every morning all cat pans are cleaned up. We found a corn based litter that not only has no dust (for the asthmatics) but it is totally biodegradable and can be flushed down the toilet.
Next comes breakfast with appropriate medications.
Then comes playtime. Tee has had the run of the house for a while. Calze and Scruff have an alternating schedule. One reason is because they are all still in varying stages of medications and the other is that they are kittens…they never hold still. Tee is like a little butterfly flitting all over the house. Calze likes to play with leashes we have attached to the cages, like they are snakes or something wiggling around. He loves to pounce on them and “catch” them.
Scruff does the same, but he also raids Harry’s food bowl. He’s a spaghetti thief. And, I need to get some scratching mats for them to save the furniture, so we have to monitor them a bit.
Calze
Today we did let the three of them out at once and it was quite the free for all. Leap frog, ambush, wrestle, chase…all over the place. After play, it is naptime.
Little Imp is still too sick and weak to come out unless it is just to sit in my lap.
Pretty soon, it’s dinner time, followed by another recreation hour. Then it is evening, time to head back to the playpens, play a little ball inside, bat a leash around and roll around in a hammock until bed.
We were told that the feral cats here can have three litters a year. We successfully prevented three females from having three litters. Unfortunately, there appear to be two, or possibly three pregnant females still out there. We will be ready for the next round and more experienced, too.
I am allowing one obviously pregnant female into the cortile to eat not just to trap her, but to have her bring the kittens so I can gain their trust early and stop the cycle.
One final note…our veterinarian spoke to the Mayor of our town and told him what we are trying to do. He mentioned our problem neighbor. However, the Mayor approves, and I am allowed to feed the feral cats in my cortile, no matter who may be screaming at our door.
March, 2020
June Volz
Street Urchins
We are Americans living in Italy. Yes, I know it sounds like a dream, but life is rarely lived as in a dream.
I love it here. I am reminded of what life was like when I was growing up, with a sense of community and wholesomeness I have missed for a very long time. And the food is natural and wonderful, the air is clean, the water is potable and it is nearly impossible to find a bad wine.
There are difficulties, such as learning an entirely new language, dealing with Italian bureaucracy and, for the time being, getting along without a car. Add to that the usual complaints of someone getting older, complete with aches and pains and mounting fatigue. It does, however, seem that people live quite a long time here.
We did a brief sojourn in New Jersey in an “adult community.” Lovely house, nice little garden, a “gym” of sorts. But the day we moved in and a neighbor described it as “God’s waiting room” did not precisely fill my heart with warmth and affection for the place. Being surrounded by old people gets old very quickly! And the rules they had! We’re adults, right? I can’t grow a vegetable? I can’t decide what color to paint my shutters? I can’t bring my adult daughter to the gym with me? I chafed at their arbitrary rules, the way they were rampantly cutting down trees and the daily anticipation of finding out who died recently. It felt very isolating and depressing.
Here, we live in a hill town of approximately twelve thousand people. A town built atop a hill starting in the 12th Century and continuing through the 16th...and today. A central town of ancient churches, monasteries, buildings and “terra cotta” homes made of stone and brick, with cobblestone streets that wind this way and that. It is not “booming” by any means, in fact, the economy is struggling, yet the town bustles by day and evening, with a long “pranzo” (lunch…the main meal of Italians) in the middle of the day. It is a town populated by old and young and everyone in between, which, to me, is the way people ought to live.
In my fantasy, before we actually got here, I pictured us having a cat or two. But my husband was adamant, “No more cats! We’re done with cats!” He didn’t ever want to clean a litter box again, or smell one.
Yes, I pictured la bella vita, sitting on a bench with a glass of wine in the cortile (courtyard) with the outer door open and the afternoon sun streaming in, and a kitty schmoozing around my ankles. Just an easy life with good food, clean water and no appointments to keep. That was the dream.
The reality was that there is a burgeoning feral cat population, particularly in our piazza, possibly because we are near a walkway that has some woods and greenery, also possibly because there are nooks and crannies and openings to vacant spaces where these cats can hide, stay relatively warm and sleep.
One day last spring, three tiny kittens appeared beneath the window or our neighbors across the street. My neighbor, Marguerite, told me that she and her husband, Tony, feed the cats what they can. She also said that Tony had placed some boxes for comfort inside various nooks for the cats to use as shelters and beds.
I noticed these kittens nearly every day, two little gray striped ones and one entirely black. I was also able to identify their mother. Another lady down the block and around the bend of a small alley fed them, too. I ached for these little babies.
We had our outer door restored by our other neighbor, Domenico. In order for him to do the job, he removed the entire door...which is 600 years old and in four or five parts.
This left our cortile (courtyard, pronounced core-tee-lay) wide open and the little ones wandered in. I didn’t say a word. My husband (“No more cats!”) set up a cardboard box with an old towel in it. Sure enough, the kittens, and Mamma, used it to nap in.
So, what followed, of course, was some food. Just dry kibble. But, well, the pet food here is relatively inexpensive compared to the U.S., so they soon also got some “meatballs in gravy.” And names, they got names. Not wonderful names, just some way to differentiate one from the other.
Mamma was a no-brainer. One tiny kitten had already been injured somehow, possibly by a larger cat. Her eye looked awful. We called her “Pirate.” The little black one was fierce about food, sometimes smacking the litter mates in order to hog the food. “Incubo” means nightmare in Italian, and that got shortened to Ink. The third kitten had a chubby little chowder face…seemingly unkempt in a terribly cute way. Scruff. La famiglia
.
Things became problematic when the outer door was finished and reinstalled. Well, the lady around the corner and Marguerite were feeding them, so…I started carting a tray outside each day. Oh, dear.
Sibling from a previous litter joined the gang as a regular. Sib was very timid and skittish, but Sib would hang with Mamma and the kittens and soon got into the routine.
There was another black cat, there were other interlopers from time to time, but this was the core group.
(Baby Scruff)
At about three months of age, the babies trusted me enough that we were able to get Pirate to the veterinarian. The prognosis was not good. “The eye is lost.” She was very weak, breathing hard, too thin….back “home” she had some water, just a little, a half-hearted bite of food and settled down on our doormat inside the cortile as she basked in the sun and gazed upon the piazza. I believe she died that day or the next. We never saw her again
Little Scruff also had an eye problem, in both eyes. They were very goopy, with green and/or yellow goop, sometimes glued shut. I was able to administer antibiotic eye drops. He got so comfortable with me and the drops, I could do it just lifting his little head up…giving each eye a little wipe with a clean tissue, and he would happily go back to eating.
After his eyes recuperated, Scruff and I really bonded. I confess, I was beginning to adore this cat, this plain, ordinary little street urchin. Just a little gray, striped kitty with a funny face, nothing special. Except he let me pet him, and pick him up, and he learned his name, and he began purring and then he would schmooze my legs and lean into a head pet. I was smitten, but “No more cats!”
Well, it was soon apparent that the other black cat had had kittens. We were walking with Harry on the passaggiata (walkway) and there was black Mamma, tucked in a doorway of a vacant building, and three little heads popped up in the grass. Each one was cuter than the other. There was a tabby, a soft gray one with a white bib and a tuxedo kitten, black and white.
It was not long before this family, too, came to dinner every evening. Now, instead of four, we had eight. Sometimes ten, depending on how many rogues showed up.
Clearly, there is problem here. I asked around. “Does this town have any program for neutering ferals?” No. Nothing.
I began to talk about it to my husband and was relieved and surprised when he agreed that we could get as many of them neutered as possible. But how? How? I said, well, the kittens are easy because they let me handle them, but they aren’t old enough yet. The thing is to get them to trust us, and they are doing that because they get fed regularly.
Feeding time also morphed into play time. I made a couple of aluminum foil balls that the kittens loved to smack around the cortile after they ate. We set Harry’s airplane travel kennel out in the cortile and put a couple of boxes inside and sometimes one or two of them would nap there, other times they would just play by sticking their paws through the openings, baiting whoever was outside.
As far as the older ones, like Mamma and Sib, who would never let me touch them, I ordered a Hav-A-Hart trap from the U.S. It is used for wild animals and also feral cats. There is a trip inside for the door, so the cat enters to get food, steps on the trip and the door closes behind them. Bam! Then they can’t get out.
We had settled into rather enjoyable routines throughout the Spring, Summer and into the Fall, received and figured out the trap, and we had a plan with the veterinarian. The veterinarian was all for the plan because he said that besides their lives being hard and miserable, pretty soon we were going to have a hundred cats in our little piazza. Cats here have three litters a year. Three litters, say with three kittens…that’s nine kittens from one cat. Every year. Just after the holidays we were getting ready to implement “the plan.”
That is when the police showed up at our door.
I didn’t go out, thinking it was just a delivery, but it was taking a very long time. I heard my husband talking to someone, but that often happens if we see a neighbor outside. When he came inside he said that there were three people at the door, the police captain (!!), a “vigili”…a lower level official of some sort…and an unfriendly neighbor who is an attorney and lives two doors down from us.
He said the attorney wouldn’t shut up, appeared very angry and was talking over the “vigili” who was more or less speaking while looking at the ground and the police officer seemed uncomfortable and bored. Because two people were speaking at the same time it was very difficult, near impossible to figure out what they were saying. “Gatti”…”cani”….cats, dogs…poop in the street. Bottom line….don’t feed the cats anymore.
Another problem here, while on the subject of poop in the street, is that people do not pick up after their dogs. The town even installed “dog drops”…separate green “eco” drops for dog poop, but still people don’t bother. We do. We have always picked up after Harry. Everyone in this piazza, possibly the town, knows it, too. They certainly see us enough.
That being said, yes, the cats were pooping in the piazza. Two points here…there have ALWAYS been feral cats in this piazza. Second, there has ALWAYS been someone around to feed them.
And while this trio also knocked on the doors of our friends across the street, and Domenico, who has nothing at all to do with it, and the other lady down the block, it felt very much like we were being singled out for a reprimand because we are foreigners.
After this incident, Domenico came over to assure us we were “not in trouble” and that this guy is a “bad neighbor.” Yes, well, we knew that…who calls the police over something like this? Why not just talk to us? My husband was periodically cleaning up the messes from the cats, too…….not that anyone screaming at our door was interested in that tidbit.
Later, Tony and Marguerite came over to assure us of the same. Then Marguerite promised to help us with “the plan” by driving us to the veterinarian. (It is a rather long walk, especially if you are carrying something.) THAT was the most wonderful thing!
They also said that they were going to continue to feed the cats….and so was the lady down the street. So, we did, too…under cover of darkness…down an alley…on a piece of newspaper…so there was no evidence in the morning and then we threw the paper away.
At this point, initiating “the plan” seemed to take on a new urgency. Also, large, rogue, prowling male cats were showing up. The next mating season was fast approaching
.
After a week or so of sneaking out after dark, we started to feed the ferals in the cortile. They trusted us enough that I could close the outer door while they ate inside. No one could see them.
One evening a newbie showed up. This cat looked vaguely familiar. She walked with her tail high, so I could see she was female. She walked right in like she already knew everyone. Right away, she let me pet her. This was very strange. Then I recalled the third of the black mamma’s litter – the tortoise shell kitten. Where had she been? Why was she here?
Observing her the following days, I had the distinct impression she was going into “heat.” She would sidle up to Scruff, who was indifferent to her advances. She would sidle up to me, she would sidle up to Harry. And she started to try and stay inside after all the others had eaten and decided it was time to hit the streets again.
TeeI kept telling my husband this cat was not feral, not like the others. Had someone taken her in and then decided to dump her? I don’t know why…but she won him over. Not only that, he said to me, out of the blue one evening, “Well, if we get a large enough enclosure, we could keep three cats in the back room.” ???? Three? Three cats? Mr. “No more cats!” said we could keep three? Be still my heart!!!
We moved Harrys kennel back inside, to the back room, set up the water and food dishes and a small cat pan. T.S. (Tortoise Shell) got shortened to Tee, Missy Tee, Tee-Tee. And she loved it inside. She was tired, she was hungry and she was very, very affectionate.
She also had terrible, terrible diarrhea. Each of us would have to get up in the middle of the night at some point and clean her pan, the odor was horrendous and wafted throughout the entire apartment.
There is an over-the-counter deworming treatment here, which I quickly bought. It requires two administrations, two weeks apart. It is also recommended that it be repeated after two months. After her second dose, Tee’s condition improved and we were able to sleep through the night again.
Once she seemed rested and healthy enough, we walked her to the vet for spaying because I didn’t want to bother Marguerite since we were going to keep little Missy Tee and we could carry her in a nice, lightweight over the shoulder cat carrier. Tee came home to recuperate in the kennel and all was well.
I ordered a cat “playpen.” It is as tall as I am, with four front doors, two up and two down, three “perches” and I added a cat hammock. Tee was so happy to be in this little cat palace, loving her soft perches and her hammock.
Being January, in this part of Italy, it can get cold. We hadn’t had any snow, but there were nights that the temperatures dropped to freezing. One such night, one of the predatory male cats was outside, terrorizing Scruff. I was worried and beside myself. I heard howling.
I was in the living room when the door opened and my husband marched in carrying Scruff into the house! Scruffy! My boy! He went into the kennel, Tee’s former digs. Poor, sweet Scruff seemed exhausted. Was he in shock or just totally spent? He ate and slept for an entire weekBy this time, we were letting Tee out of the playpen to explore the house, to be more of a normal cat. I tried to coax Scruff out of the kennel but he wanted no part of it. He even closed the kennel door on himself. “No thanks! I’m good, right here.”
We walked him to the veterinarian, too, got him neutered and dewormed. Scruff was on his way from being the “Prince of the Piazza” to being a pampered indoor kitty.
Scruff 10 mos.We had another unexpected addition, and luckily we had an additional cage.
While I was feeding the usual suspects in the cortile, little Demon came in, too. Demon, when a baby kitten, was a gigantic loudmouth. When I walked outside with the food last summer he would wail and echo through the piazza. He made it hard for me to move because he also tried to climb up my legs! Hence, the name “Demon.” He’s a “tuxedo” cat, black and white and oh, so cute. I noticed in the fall that his breathing had become labored. He had a loss of appetite, too. Thoughts of helping him flew out the window because he would not, under any circumstances, let me touch him, not even when he was eating.
This particular night was miserable in every way… cold, windy and rainy. Demon came in, sniffed at the food but just sat by the others. In spite of the weather, the regulars all wanted out when they were done eating. Not Demon. He was looking for a place to hide. In my mind, I wondered if he was looking for a place to curl up and die.
To my surprise, as he huddled in a corner, he let me approach him. He let me pet his tiny head. He let me pick him up. I believe he had given up, just given up and was totally spent. I rushed into the house, my husband quickly got the new cage ready and we decided we would do what we could in spite of him looking, at this point, like a hospice case. I was able to interest him in some wet food and was somewhat amazed he even made it through the night.
We transported him to the vet as soon as possible and were told he has severe asthma. It is a type of asthma that is common in street cats and caused by a transmittable virus. The doctor gave us some steroid medication to give him. Each small pill had to be cut into 1/8. Honestly, it was just a speck. But, this cat maybe weighed a pound…he is half the size he should be for his age and nothing but bones.
After a week and a half of medication we brought him back. The doctor told us he was only slightly better and had us try another medication along with the steroid on a strict schedule. He was also put on a stronger worm medicine as he was eating well but still horribly skinny. I started keeping a daily calendar
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In the meantime, we trapped Mamma, Ink and Scruff’s mother. Marguerite drove us to the doctor and everything went smoothly, except Mamma was not happy at all. She cried constantly, all day, all night with small respites when she finally drifted off to sleep.
She was desperate to be released and after three days, we took the cage to the outer door and off she went like a streak.
She and Ink and Sib, however, returned for dinner!
The next catch was Calze. He is soft gray with a white bib and white feet. Calze means “socks” or “stockings” in Italian. He was so easy I barely remember it. No fuss, no fight. Easy.
His recuperation was easy, too. No dramatics, no crying, just a happy little guy loving getting regular meals and sleeping someplace comfy and warm. Sooooooooooooo, we wondered about releasing him. We decided not to. Three indoor cats became four. And it’s not my fault. It wasn’t even my idea!
At this point, Demon was showing mild improvement and I just could not saddle him with that moniker anymore. Demon morphed into Imp. Now that his eyes were brighter, he was finding his voice again and wanting some affection, Imp seemed to suit this tiny tuxedo very well.
ImpThe last to be trapped was Ink. And although she did not raise a ruckus for 3 days, she was the most difficult of all. It took four of us fifteen minutes to maneuver her in the cage to a point where the doctor could sedate her. She was screaming, all claws extended, trying to bite anything she could. It was a nightmare, alright.
After that, though, she settled into reluctant recuperation. And she, like Mamma, returned for her dinner after being released.
Scruff frightened us one evening with an episode of difficult breathing and a cough. He, too, has asthma, but not as severe as Imp. He is on a Lysine supplement and has improved very nicely.
We are still waiting for another large playpen cage, but in the meantime, the little gang has begun to settle into a bit of a routine. First thing every morning all cat pans are cleaned up. We found a corn based litter that not only has no dust (for the asthmatics) but it is totally biodegradable and can be flushed down the toilet.
Next comes breakfast with appropriate medications.
Then comes playtime. Tee has had the run of the house for a while. Calze and Scruff have an alternating schedule. One reason is because they are all still in varying stages of medications and the other is that they are kittens…they never hold still. Tee is like a little butterfly flitting all over the house. Calze likes to play with leashes we have attached to the cages, like they are snakes or something wiggling around. He loves to pounce on them and “catch” them.
Scruff does the same, but he also raids Harry’s food bowl. He’s a spaghetti thief. And, I need to get some scratching mats for them to save the furniture, so we have to monitor them a bit.
CalzeToday we did let the three of them out at once and it was quite the free for all. Leap frog, ambush, wrestle, chase…all over the place. After play, it is naptime.
Little Imp is still too sick and weak to come out unless it is just to sit in my lap.
Pretty soon, it’s dinner time, followed by another recreation hour. Then it is evening, time to head back to the playpens, play a little ball inside, bat a leash around and roll around in a hammock until bed.
We were told that the feral cats here can have three litters a year. We successfully prevented three females from having three litters. Unfortunately, there appear to be two, or possibly three pregnant females still out there. We will be ready for the next round and more experienced, too.
I am allowing one obviously pregnant female into the cortile to eat not just to trap her, but to have her bring the kittens so I can gain their trust early and stop the cycle.
One final note…our veterinarian spoke to the Mayor of our town and told him what we are trying to do. He mentioned our problem neighbor. However, the Mayor approves, and I am allowed to feed the feral cats in my cortile, no matter who may be screaming at our door.
March, 2020
June Volz
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