Cat contretemps

Nobody owns a cat.

This may not be a strict legal rule but as far as I can tell, that’s what cats seem to think about it and it’s how they behave.

So here’s a little story.

In the fall of 2010, we encountered some young cats – hardly more than kittens, really – in our neighborhood. They were apparently on their own, travelling from house to house in search of meals. Several friends and acquaintances in the area had noticed them and put food out for them. They were clearly not feral, but seemed to have been left to their own devices.

On Christmas Eve, word came of a pending blizzard and one friend called to tell us that she had found one of the cats. My wife, Lois, always with a tender spot in her heart for a cat, went over to the neighbor’s house. The cat came to her, and Lois brought her home.

Then came the blizzard. How the smaller cat managed to shelter, we have no idea, but after the storm was over, this little creature was discovered and Lois went to bring her home as well.

We fully expected notices to be posted about lost cats, but nothing was ever tacked to any telephone pole we saw, nor did we see any ad amongst the free “lost and founds” in the Record-Journal. The larger cat came into heat within a week or so of when we brought her inside – we thought perhaps a steady diet might have helped. A bit of investigation on the Net suggested that heat would be a semi-permanent condition.

So, since it appeared they’d be remaining with us, we made appointments, took them to our veterinarian to be checked out, and, since both were of an appropriate age, we had them both spayed. All shots were given, and they both were reported as healthy. It was out vet’s opinion that they were not mother/daughter and not litter mates but perhaps from successive litters of the same mother. The larger one, he said, was a few months the older, but she showed no sign of having given birth at all. Nor, when we looked at her, did she seem to have nursed kittens.

We wondered for months what the back story could have been. How could anyone have abandoned these excellent cats to fend for themselves? What had happened to their mother? Were there other siblings? If only cats could speak, we mused.

They became regular members of our household, gradually becoming familiar and acclimated with our other five cats. We took them to the vet as needed, which was not often for indoor cats, and we came to love them to pieces. They’re polydactylic: both have six toes on the front feet and five on the back, twenty-two in all, four more than is usual.

And so it continued for 18 months until this week, when a mother and daughter appeared on our front step asking how they could get their cats returned. They were crying. Lois was crying. The mother said she’d missed the cats all this time and that she wanted them back. We were not prepared to make any spur of the moment decision, and we said we’d call them after we’d had a chance to discuss the situation. I looked online for the legal status of cat ownership and Lois called the vet and the police with the same question. We found no definitive answer, even from the city’s animal control officer, who told us that the question is clearer if dogs, rather than cats, are the “property.”

Soon enough, a police cruiser pulled up and a pleasant but reluctant-seeming young officer walked up to the house. Our crying visitors had gone home and directly called police.

We did not and do not want to be mean. We discussed this reasonably with the officer, and, as we spoke about it, made it fairly clear that unless it were legally required, we would not part with these cats. We have made a major emotional investment in these animals which, so far as we were concerned, were abandoned. The officer went to speak to the other folks with that – but also with our suggestion that we would find other cats or kittens for them and contribute to their veterinary bills.

The officer returned in a while with a flat out rejection of our offer and with the further comment that they had no energy or time or money to pursue any such idea. The officer told us that according to such legal precedents as existed, since the cats had been with us for over a year, there could be no question of property crime, even if he had concluded we had stolen these animals (which he had not concluded). Hence, any further dispute would be up to parties to pursue in civil court. And he very politely said goodbye and went away.

We absolutely do not want to start some neighborhood feud, but we don’t think these folks, however sad their situation, should have these animals, particularly if they let them outside to wander the neighborhood again.

End of story? Well, perhaps. The daughter – high school aged? – came up the street walking her dogs a half hour later or so, three or four times back and forth in front of our house, and allowed them to make their deposits on our lawn. Somewhat later, she returned with a friend, and they stood in the street, stared into our windows, and did little dances. After another while, the mom drove by in a large van and paused in the street and stared at our front windows for a couple of minutes.

This is preposterous. While we can cope with a certain amount of such folderol, we hope they see this soon and either approach us with some sort of compromise or move on with their lives.