It's been quite a while since I wrote about the feral cats in my backyard. Above is a photo I posted of them here about two and a half years ago. I can use it again because they're both still around and they look exactly like that. Lydia has been here for more than ten years. In fact, in April of 2008, she was pregnant and as I reported in this diary, I trapped her, took her in and had her made unpregnant and unable to get that way ever again.
She's always around…or at worst, in an adjoining yard. I feed her almost every morning and then I feed her at least once in the evening when she is joined by Sylvia. I know not where Sylvia lurks during daylight hours. Given her schedule, she just might be a vampire.
For most meals, each gets a half-a-can of some wet Friskies canned food served on a bed of dry Friskies cat food. I don't give them larger portions because I've learned that's all they'll eat. If there's more, they leave it and wander away and then it gets devoured by raccoons or possums. During daylight hours, the huge crows we have around here will sometimes swoop down for a knosh.
Lately, the Friskies I've been giving them are from a box like this one…
This is Friskies' new "Cat Concoctions," which they describe as "curious combinations chosen by cats." The box of 24 cans costs the same as any box of 24 cans of Friskies in the market I went to so I figured I'd give it a shot. You get six each of…
- Scrumptious Salmon & Chicken Liver Dinner Paté
- Chicken in Creamy Crabby Sauce
- Lamb in Clam Flavored Sauce
- Cod in Cheesy Bacon Flavored Sauce
The Creamy Crabby Sauce does smell like some sort of cheap canned crab bisque but there is no trace of actual crab in that item's ingredients. There are no clams in the Clam Flavored Sauce, just as one will find neither cheese nor bacon involved in the Cheesy Bacon Flavored Sauce. One suspects those flavors are in there for our benefit so we'll think we're giving our cats what we think is yummy.
I keep wondering about this. I feed them different varieties of Friskies in rotation — one day, salmon; the next day, chicken; the next day, turkey. Do they care? If I just bought a ton of any one flavor and fed it to them at every meal, would they be any less happy? I know feral cats are glad to get any kind of food but I have never noticed the slightest preference by them for one kind over another, whether it was your basic Mixed Grill or Chicken in Creamy Crabby Sauce. You and I might get sick of eating the same food every meal but do cats?
The tagline "curious combinations chosen by cats" suggests that the Friskies people made up a wide array of strange flavors and that some Blue Ribbon Committee of cats preferred these four. Did they opt for Cod in Cheesy Bacon Flavored Sauce over, say, Tilapia in Hickory Smoke BBQ Flavored Sauce? Why do I think the deciding factor was what sounded good to the buyers?