Air horns and apologies in the night...

We have been trying to convince the orange/white stray cat to find a new home.  He has two strikes against him now--- he has bitten me on the leg, and he has scratched the heck out of my husband's hand and wrist. As my husband now says: "No more Mr. Nice Guy. This is war."

Before this week, we had been feeding the orange cat every day because of all the cold days and frigid nights we were having in the hills here.  How can you ignore the pleading meows of a cat who's sleeping in your barn at night and hiding in the bushes during the day?  So we fed him. Our mistake. I also made sure he had a warm blanket to sleep on. My mistake.

The return on our investment?  My bitten leg, and my husband's scratched hand. Plus, our outside cat Gatsby is scared to pieces of the orange cat, and our semi-outside cat Mickey has adopted the stray as his buddy. As for the orange cat, the porch is his kingdom, the chair with his blanket is his throne, and he thinks this house is like Burger King--- he wants everything his way.

We have given up with the catch/release cage.... there is no way that cat will go near that cage, no matter how hungry he gets. We've tried that approach before with him, and it just doesn't work. As soon as he sees that cage on the porch, off he goes, but he always comes back. Our plan to take him to the shelter in that cage is not going to work.  Plan B was to put him into a cat-carrier, but that didn't work either... that's how my husband got all those scratches.

We have stopped feeding the orange/white cat. My husband has tried to scare that cat away by blasting it with the not-so-musical sounds of an air horn. (The neighbors are going to love that one.)  The orange cat didn't much like the air horn, but it hasn't kept him away from the porch.... he just runs away from the back door now every time we open it.

This afternoon, when lunch was not offered to the orange cat, he strolled across the yard, walked down the hill, crossed the road and went under the fence to the neighbor's property.  That cat walked inbetween the neighbor's cows and goats and pranced up towards their barn. Clearly, he's getting food from some other source up there.

Just a little while ago, the orange cat was on the porch. I opened the door to scare him away with the air horn, then remembered that it's nearly midnight--- not exactly a good time for an air horn blast.  So I did the next best thing...... I went out on the porch, walked over towards the bushes where the cat was hiding, and apologized for not being able to feed him anymore.  The last thing I heard was a teeny meow coming from beneath the red-buds.