Chay: The P Lot Kitty

Early this spring a young tabby kitten showed up in the UNC "P" park and ride lot. Over the next couple of months, various commuters took to feeding her. We didn't know each other, only that the kitty's food bowl was kept filled. A couple of weeks ago, I put up a sign at the light post where we fed the kitty asking for contributions to get "him" neutered and vaccinated. According to everything I read about feral cats, trap, neuter and release (TNR) was the best we could do for him unless someone wanted to take him home. One woman responded to my post, and when we met, I learned that she, Kathy, had developed a very special rapport with the boy who she called Chay--Chapel Hill Gray.

POP-NC, Pet Overpopulation Patrol, comes to the Orange County Animal Shelter just up the road from the parking lot every Tuesday so I borrowed a Hav-A-Heart trap and set out to trap him. Unfortunately, we had major thunderstorms for the next 3 Mondays and in the interim we realized that he was getting pretty chubby. Over that week we finally realized that he was a she and she was probably pregnant. On Friday, I got an email from Kathy asking if I thought there might be two kittens. She said Chay had hissed and been very unfriendly the night before.

Over the weekend I agonized over how to handle her pregnancy. A veterinary friend assured me that it was best for Chay to go forward with the spay. She said feral cats who are forced to raise kittens in captivity are miserable and frequently end up killing their kittens. And allowing her to give birth in the parking lot was sure to bring just as much heartache since Chay had already been hurt once herself. I didn't see her on Friday or Saturday. But when I got to the lot of Sunday she came running for food and looked very thin. Were there two kittens--one pregnant and one not? Or had she given birth already?

According to the Feral Cat Coalition, if she had kittens we could still trap her and get her spayed but we would need to get her back to the site within 24 hours. So I made the appointment for this past Tuesday, and Kathy and I agreed to not feed her on Monday afternoon to increase the likelihood of a successful trap on Tuesday morning.

I got to the lot early on Tuesday morning and set the trap before Chay's normal breakfast hour. Skinny Chay cooperated by showing up almost immediately, and walking right into the trap to get the food. And then she walked out--too light to have set off the trap. Notice how she is licking her lips!

Fortunately, I only put down a couple of bites since she was heading into surgery if the trap was successful. So I pushed so more of the nice smelly food onto the paper plate and got a long stick so that I could trip the lock myself. Success!

She fought like the proverbial wildcat, but I had followed the trapping advice from the Feral Cat Coalition and came prepared with an old sheet which I immediately draped it over the trap. She calmed right down and was a little lady throughout the car ride and the check in procedure.

Was it Chay that we trapped or were there two of them? I went back to the lot and put down more wet food to try and solve the mystery. To my great relief, the food was still there when I got back to the lot that afternoon. One feral kitty is enough!

When I picked Chay up, I was told that she wasn't pregnant but she was lactating. From what I read and the POP folks confirmed, Chay needed to be kept indoors and warm for 24 hours after her surgery. The POP staff also felt like there was no point in returning her to the parking lot for the kittens because her milk had just about dried up, indicating that the kittens, if there were any, were old enough to eat on their own.

Kathy had decided to take Chay home after the surgery so I picked her up and met Kathy for the handoff. Unfortunately, Chay started waking up just as we were transferring her to Kathy's car for the ride to Durham. She was totally freaked out, swaying from side to side and banging her head into the sides of the cage. It was absolutely heartbreaking. But once again, once we covered the cage, she calmed down. What we had hoped would be a perfect ending for our beautiful little girl was marred by our fear for the kittens. We put up another sign and agreed to do what we could to find them, if there were any.

Since Chay had gone from chubby to skinny over about 4 days the week before, I felt like she had miscarried or the kittens had died prematurely, but Kathy wasn't willing to take that chance. She returned Chay to the parking lot the next day. I've been out everyday since, but Chay isn't going to have anything to do with me. And there are no sign of any kittens still.

As much as I wanted Chay to live happily ever after with Kathy, I love knowing she's somewhere around the parking lot. Parking lots are such barren wastelands and her presence adds a humanizing factor that I didn't know I was missing before she came to live there. I'm still hoping we can recapture her and convince her that living with Kathy is a better life than living on asphalt, but in the meantime, I look forward to going to work everyday and seeing our P lot kitty.