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AndriaD
Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
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Hmmmmm. Well then, we may need to think on this more. Actually I had thought that Tuxie's yowling when she encounters some other cats outdoors, and reasonable acceptance of others, was because she didn't like the males -- she was fixed just as her first heat concluded. But maybe I had it backwards; maybe the ones she yowls at are actually other females. Though there was one stray feral that was definitely not a male; it was short-haired enough to see very clearly, no dangly bits -- and the poor kitteh was just ripped and bit and scarred all over, so I doubt it was ever a domestic cat, probably always a feral stray; Tuxie had absolutely zero problems, zero yowling, with that one; she even came into the garage and ate from Tuxie's bowl sometimes, and provoked no kitty yowling matches. OTOH, there's a feral stray male (definitely male!) around here, another Tuxedo with long unkempt hair that looks so much like Sylvester, everytime I see it I say "thuffering thucotash!"
Tuxie yowls and yodels at him like the world is ending. Andria
Besides sympathies, I have a freebie offer...Teddy has decided he wants to be a house cat, but he still has three gorgeous 4-month-old sisters in the garage (two grayish calicos and one long-hair tabby). I can't bring them into the house because we have three females already that would not tolerate that (they barely tolerate each other). You can put an infinite amount of boys together and they will quickly decide who is Alpha and leave it that way until old age, but more than one female and there will be fights forever to determine (then re-determine) who's the boss.
I'd love to take a kitten but I live in Canada so it would be complicated to turn one of them into a cross-border kitty! Besides, my daughter and I still have two other cats - a brother and sister who are 13 years old. My daughter is 18 but would happily take in any cat that wanders by... someday she'll be a crazy old cat lady. She already floated the idea of getting a kitten but I have my late neighbor's cat in mind (a nice cat lady who passed away last year) - the cat is 14 years old and I still go over to her house twice a day to feed her plus her feral family that lives outside.
Most cats meow, some just ow, some just mew. We have one (Twinkie) whose vocabulary exceeds many humans for the variety of sounds and pitches. When facing her and she is talking to me, I swear there is an entire and (seemingly) intelligent conversation going on. If you hear her outside and do not see her, she sounds more like a bunch of birds chirping to each other (chirup, mew, meh, chirp, ow, chitter, oh, uh, ow, me me). Over the years, one gets to (almost) understand what the cats are saying/asking for. It could be that Tuxie's yowl and yodel do not necessarily mean anger. Only you and your experience with her can determine that, however, because what any given sound means to one "cat owner," when spoken by another cat, might mean something different. I can only attest to what "my" cats say and do, though it has been fairly consistent amongst all my little furry friends over the past 60+ years of watching/listening/interacting: Boys tolerate anyone (except obviously aggressive strays), females "typically" do not want other females in their territory. Maybe Tuxie doesn't like that particular male because he has a reputation (known amongst all neighborhood cats) as a ruffian.
Hmmm... I am in NW South Dakota, so it would only be a day's drive up to the border and back. I have a really old US Border Patrol hat that I could tape to one of the kittens and maybe she'd get across without too much trouble.
AndriaD
Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
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Hmm, I dunno; she's been known to yowl and yodel (sounds like a cat fight, but it always just looks like Tuxie expressing her very loud disdain of whatever cat provoked it) at some other cats too, but never ever at the feral stray female who used to come in and eat from her bowl. Maybe Tuxie sensed that cat's dominance, from all those "war wounds"? I swear, one of that cat's ears was practically in tatters, and the back of one of her front legs was just missing, the soft-tissue connective-tissue area. There was another female that used to happen by, ugliest cat I've ever seen -- she had apparently birthed so many litters, her teats dragged the ground! Tuxie would SCREAM at that one, and though she didn't seem offended by Tuxie's screeching, Tuxie wouldn't stop, and once when that one tried to come into the garage, Tuxie had a connimption fit, which resulted in an actual cat fight, until the teat-dragger finally scrammed.
Andria
AndriaD
Yes, I DO wear a mask! I'm vaccinated, too!
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
I feel like this picture sums up my life.
Yes, dear, we all have a few things we must climb in life ... sometimes hard, sometimes fun ... I think that is why I learned to dance so all my efforts felt like fun instead of work.
Ah, I see your point. But I have always figured if I keep climbing, I never have to just hang on. "Never give up. Never surrender."
Must be why my herbs all died. I didn't use kitten-infused water.
