Trouble is back

Trouble is back! I am not necessarily happy about it but you deal with what you have to deal with. Jim and I were sitting watching television the other evening when there was a knock on the door. The next door neighbor's child was standing at our door. He had a request to make. In the summer months when we had the entire litter of kittens to give away his family had taken the runt of the litter, they named her Trouble. We had heard nothing about her since then although we had seen her occasionally. Now he was on our doorstep stating that his mom told him to throw the kitten outside because she was not litter trained like we claimed. It seemed strange to us because all the kittens used the litter box only making mistakes if we did not keep the litter boxes clean. You could tell that he was upset about his mother's ultimatum. He told us that he did not want to put her outside in the cold so could we please take her back.

Trouble perched on back of chair after arrival back at our house.

I was also very upset for several reasons. One that I considered the neighbors to be responsible animal lovers and I would never consider that they would throw an animal out in the snow because of litter box issues. There are other avenues that you can follow, retraining her to use the litter box, finding her a new home, taking her to the shelter, etc. They have other cats and two dogs, I am wondering which of them will get thrown out for trivial reasons next. There are things that you can do to get a cat to use a litter box when it breaks litter training. Why if this was an ongoing problem had we not heard about it earlier? Something did not smell right about the entire situation but I did not want to see the kitten trying to survive on her own in the middle of winter or worse find out she died so we agreed to take her back. I am sure if they were callous enough to throw her outside they would not bother to take care of her and provide shelter or feed her anymore. I basically felt we had no choice.

This came at a very bad time because we had seriously considered taking the remaining kittens to the no kill shelter in town because having five cats was just a bit too much. Now here we are with six cats! This is not progressing in the correct direction.

Trouble right before she left our house when her name was Squirt!

Now we have Rommel going through cat infatuation again because there is an new cat in the house so he is on high alert to chase and play with any thing that moves. Trouble is hiding and spitting and hissing at the other cats in the house. She does not remember that they are all family. Of course the resident cats are all returning the favor and growling and hissing back at her. I have not ever heard so many sounds of cat discontent in my life. I have had to keep a small dish of cat food next to me so Trouble can get something to eat because the other cats will not let her share their dish yet. She has used the litter box so I guess that the reason for dumping her is a figment of someones imagination.

Now we not only have another mouth to feed and care for, we have chaos in the house that will probably take several days or weeks to resolve itself. We still have to make the hard decision on whether to take the kittens to the shelter where they will hopefully find good homes or keep them here because they have of course worked their little fuzzy selves into our hearts. I am not happy with my neighbors and I am hoping that I will not see them for quite a while so that I have time to calm down before I tell them what I think of their attitudes towards raising kittens.

Oh well, life goes on. I need to take a deep breath and get on with things. Excuse me but I have to go grab a German Shepherd that is flying past me chasing a cat. Life is definitely going to be so bizarre, that is for sure.