Welcome to The Feral Cat Report.

Here we keep up with Dottie's Ferals, the free-living cats of my mother's block in Queens, registered with the NYC Feral Cat Database. 

The accepted term for groups of free-living cats is "colony".  I call them a family.  Having observed them for years, I can tell you these cats are not the chilly, distant creatures people think, competitive for resources and disinterested in each other saying, "AAahy HET you stewpid hewmannns and atha creeteurs."  They are devoted, caring families who love their babies, share their wealth, and have an amazingly structured society.

Our feral cat "problem" started when Mrs. Lipkin's'* cats, who never got spayed or neutered, started spending time outside, fraternized with other cats who were unspayed and unneutered, and before you knew it, Bob's your uncle (or Cow's your father in our case - Cow is the Heavyweight Tom Cat of the World (avenue) fathering all the kittens for blocks around, for years, without challenge.  My aunt named him Cow because he's white with black cow spots.  He's Jack's grandfather, btw.  Jack looks just like his mother, Cowboy - aka The Captain, RIP - who looked just like her father, Cow.  Jack, bbttww, is the only one of my cats that I know his lineage going back several generations.  I tell him all the time about his famous grandcat and all the times he walked in front of my car causing me to slam on the breaks and scream and nearly have an aneurism.  But I digress.): 

KITTENS!  And cats and cats and kittens, all sitting on the back step with gaping, pleading, glistening eyes like those $2 velvet cat pictures from the 60's.  You expect a tear to fall out as the cat in front says, "please, miss, won't you share your obviously vast wealth and give us something to eat from your refrigerator?"

You can't say, "sorry, I don't have any cat food," because right on your foot is your own fat Caroline with tuna crumbs on her beard saying "who's THAT?  What does he want?"

So you feed them.  Then they bring two friends, and next week those have two friends and before you know it, it's a Pantene commercial in your back yard.  (Without the perfumed hair.  And not MY backyard, to be accurate.... this is my mother's house we're talking about.  SHE'S the guilty one... not me.  I want to make that perfectly clear.  I don't live there, it's not my house.  It's all HER!  I had nothing to do with it.  I swear)

Anyway, they're all just cats.  Until you get to know them.  Day after day, watching them, feeding them, seeing how they interact with each other, with you, how they take care of their babies, how they always leave a babysitter with the kids if the group take a walk.  You get to think of them as neighbors.  They become friends, and eventually you're talking about them as if they're people.  You meet your neighbor from across the street in the bakery and you say, "Hi Joann, did you see Sylvia today?"  She says, "Is that the lady in the pink house?"  Duh!  Joann!  "No! Sylvia is the long haired tabby from the back yard.  What's the matter with you!"

The Feral Cat Report pages will tell the stories of The Family Cow.   It's an old family, but a new area... it didn't occur to me until recently to start writing this, so it could take some time to get current, but what we've got so far is at left in ascending order, most recent at the top.  Enjoy.  - JD

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*name changed to protect privacy