Every once in a while an invader cat wanders into our backyard during the night and Hopper goes nuts. She starts yowling at terrific volume and attacking the sliding glass door as if this cat was about to steal her food dish. The cat runs away as soon as we open the door to go out, and that's that.
Until last week, that is, when Hopper suddenly went nuts one morning. We went out and discovered a brown tabby just hanging out next door. He seemed to have no interest in Hopper at all, and eventually she fled. I, of course, went back for my camera and got a picture. Behold the invader cat.
Check out the prickly pair on this guy, I'd flee too.
That's a tough customer...
Invader cat appears to have lost his right ear & maybe was battle-weary & no threat to Hopper. Hope that he's OK.
Just try to find the cat with courage enough to do this: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/04/1003258540/after-years-of-detecting-land-mines-a-heroic-rat-is-hanging-up-his-sniffer 🙂
Good for the rat!
That is clearly an unneutered male, probably feral. These are generally very aggressive and dangerous to other cats. Keep your cats well away from this guy if you don't want them seriously injured or at risk of catching FIV.
Amen to the warning about FIV. My mother had a young indoor-only cat who got FIV in a confrontation with a local feral through the screen door. The cat died of it a few months later.
Yes, even without the visible sign of--ahem--maleness under the tail, the jowls say unneutered male, the damaged ear says feral.
I see a qualified volunteer for TNR.
https://www.ocanimalallies.org/our-programs/occats-feral-cat/
Kevin, please contact a TNR group to get this randyish fellow fixed. He's a ticking time bomb.
Or see if you can get him into a no-kill shelter. That's going to be harder. California is killing countless cats every day. It's a catpocalype, both from a too-many-cats standpoint and a killing-too-many-cats standpoint. A shelter I volunteer at accepted 9 cats from California two years ago. We've managed to socialize and find permanent homes for four of them and the others have a safe, comfortable place to live until they are adopted or die.
This cat of the day could pose a very real threat to Hopper and Hilbert.
And everybody always took a dim view of my murder comments...