Olive Part II

As promised, the story of Olive....

She'd started hanging around the house in early June and seemed to want to adopt me. Then I had the fiasco with the cat carrier I could not wrangle her into (did I post about that? I forget. It didn't go well) and in the process ticked her off and she stayed away for a few days. This was followed by this week's adventure: I borrowed a humane trap from the Stray Cat Alliance and planned when I'd hopefully and sneakily trick her into entering said trap. I felt slimy already. But it was for her health! I wanted to take her to the vet to get her spayed and vaccinated and de-bugged. After skipping 2 feedings (what I was taught when I got the trap), I put organic wild-caught-super-stinky sardines in the trap (a step up from the organic canned food I've been giving her) and waited. She went in after about an hour. Then I had to listen to her paw and scratch and meow and try to get out. I was traumatized. It was Sunday night, Sky was out of town, and I lay in bed almost in tears. I went out to check on her and that was a mistake-I actually did cry.

The next morning she was no less upset when I picked up the trap, carried it to my car with a cat running back and forth in it which is no easy feat at 9 1/2 months pregs, and drove her to the vet. When we got there I thought I'd be allowed to stay with her--you know, hold her paw or something while they treated her, but no. I had to leave and come back in several hours. I went to the pool, swam, and said prayers for her.

When I picked her up about 3 hours later, the vet told me she'd actually already been fixed. So she belonged to somebody once? Or someone spayed her but never adopted her? I don't know. I wish she could talk and tell me. Maybe we should go to the movie Beginners in there. Or watch Up. There is animal/people communication in those. So I don't know her story. They didn't know, of course, that she'd been spayed til they'd put her under, so the poor thing had to spend another almost 24 hours in the trap recovering from anasthesia. I covered the trap with towels to make her feel cool and safe, was told not to feed her until the following morning, and brought her home. This time she was totally mute, which was almost more upsetting than the raucous meowing she'd done for me the whole ride there. She got de-fleaed and de-wormed, and vaccinated for rabies. THEN, to make me feel like the worst mother ever, I said they could do the "ear clipping" which I thought was something like ear cleaning, because when we had dogs they were always getting stuff in their ears. Only after I got her back did I learn they actually named it for what it is: they clipped a tiny portion of one of her ears to show she's been spayed. I lay awake Monday night for about 2 hours asking her to forgive me for maiming her unnecessarily. I honestly felt SO BAD. Sky was even appalled when I told him, which didn't make it better.

playing "Where's Olive?" which she thinks she is good at

When I let her out of the trap Tuesday morning, I put out the rest of the gourmet sardines---I've always been easy to bribe with food--thought she might be too--but she ran away. Wanted nothing to do with me. And can I blame her? I had visions of us bonding on the front stoop while she ate her first meal in over 24 hours but no. She was mad and I was sad.

she's very serious in front of the camera

The story has a happy ending, however. It's afternoon of that same day as I write this. I came home to her lounging outside the front door, and as I sit on a chair in our front yard, she's cruising around my legs and coming up on the chair to be loved by me. I might have to get some extra sardines since she's been so generous in her willingness to forgive. I have to say here that it's been rather hilarious that in our completely vegetarian household there are now on a daily basis cans of meat products in our fridge. I keep telling Sky that Olive was not raised by a homeopath in Del Mar, and besides, I don't think there is vegetarian cat food, and if there is, I'm inclined to think I should go with nature on this one and feed the girl what her teeth are made for. No one will notice her ear but me, though I'll probably beat myself up over it for a year. But we're good, and I'm completely in love. Now all we have to do is convince Sky she can come into the house. Once baby is settled, of course.

Letting me love her.....