Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 2:33 PM

I'm going to let you live vicariously through a dilemma with which I must deal in the next few days. As you may know, my backyard is a veritable zoo at times. I get raccoons. I get possums back there. I get a lot of cats. Given my location, the cats aren't surprising but the raccoons and possums are.

For close to a year, I've been feeding a feline who comes around every night — a cute little orange/white/grey creature who was so young when she put in her first appearance that she was referred to as The Kitten. I've never gotten around to giving her a better name so she's still The Kitten even though she is apparently on the verge of having some of her own.

This is the same animal who, last year, I accidentally locked in my garage for five days. You can read about that and see a photo of her in this posting. Despite repeated suggestions that I arrange to have her spayed, this was not done…and while I'm not 100% positive, she now looks like she's soon to be a mom.

I have a friend — a fine actor some of you may know of — who is a major saver and protector of cats and dogs. He's on the board of several organizations that deal with the problems, and folks there tell me he's donated staggering amounts of cash and time to saving animal lives. I won't mention his name because I don't want to be responsible for him being deluged with calls like the one I placed to him, asking what I should do about The Kitten. He said I had to get her spayed and that, depending on how far along she is, this may involve a kitty abortion. This made me uneasy. I'm pro-choice but it's not like she's going to be choosing.

My friend — who, let's remember, loves animals dearly — assured me it was the kindest possible gesture. "You wouldn't believe how many cats and dogs have to be destroyed every day because no one will adopt them," said he. No one will even adopt The Kitten. (I couldn't do right by her, especially since Carolyn is allergic to 'em.) Three or four more cats will just be three or four more scrounging through trash cans, begging at back doors, living under houses, etc. I trust my friend so I decided it had to be done.

He put me in touch with an organization called The Stray Cat Alliance and they, in turn, put me in touch with a veterinarian who is part of their program and who handles strays for a very modest fee. (I called the vet down the street from me. He wants about $390. With this volunteer vet, it'll be more like seventy bucks.) So the problem now is how to get The Kitten to him.

Yesterday, I bought a plastic pet transport at Petco for twenty bucks. It turns out though that the vet won't accept a feral cat in anything but a humane-style cat trap. I pointed out to his assistant that I've made friends with The Kitten. She lets me pet her and I could probably grab her up and cram her into the pet transport. No, the assistant said. It must be a trap of the approved variety. So I've just returned from a local pet food store where I rented a trap for ten bucks a day. (Total price, which they'll charge to my Visa card if I don't return the trap is eighty bucks. I'm already thinking that if this goes past four days, I may just buy the thing. There will be other strays.)

While I was there, I saw something that reassured me I was doing the right thing. It was Cat Adoption Day at the pet shop and there must have been fifty orphan cats there in cages, begging passers-by to take them home. It was very sad…and I especially felt bad for a woman there who was in charge of finding homes for these lovely animals. I talked with her a few moments and learned how she's always racing against time to get the cats adopted, and how it shatters her heart to think of how many she hasn't been able to save. When I told her what I was doing, she said, "Thank God…I wish more people would do this. They don't realize the problem they're creating by not getting their pets neutered."

So I'm home with the trap. The Kitten always comes around in the evening and lately — a tip-off that she's probably eating for more than one — in the morning, as well. I don't want to trap her tonight and make her suffer in the cage all night so I'm going to try it in the A.M. I'll report back here and let you know how things go.

Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 10:35 AM

The Kitten was waiting at the back door this morning to be fed…waiting right next to where I'd left the (unset) trap. The folks who told me how to use it said to leave it outside so the animals can get used to its presence and I did that. The Kitten seems used to its presence, which is not to say she's prepared to walk into it under her own power. The trap is a long, metal cage with spring-release doors on either end. You can set both entrances or one. I set one. At the center of the cage, there's a little floor panel and when any weight at all is put on it, it releases the door(s). I took a small amount of cat food in a paper bowl and placed it so she'd have to get all the way into the trap and stand on the floor panel to eat it.

And that's the way it's supposed to work. It hasn't yet.

She's been sniffing the trap and walking all around it and looking at me with a "What the hell is this?" look. But she was looking about as eager to step inside as I'd be to attend a

Hold on. You'll have to make up your own punch line because I think I just heard the trap spring. Gotta go check.

Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 10:42 AM

And the trap worked to perfection! It caught a feral cat!

Unfortunately, it caught the wrong feral cat…another neighborhood stray who apparently isn't as smart as the one I'm trying to snare. The Kitten, the one I want to take in for repairs, inspected the trap for half an hour before wandering off, untrapped. This cat, the one I just let out, got herself penned in just a few minutes. (I'd consider taking this cat in to be spayed too, but I see it already has been. They mark one ear with a little notch when they do it.)

Okay, so wrong cat released, trap rebaited. I'm hoping The Kitten didn't observe any of this and learn just how the trap works.

In the meantime, I sit here…appropriately working on a script for the new Garfield cartoon series. Maybe I should have baited the trap with lasagna.

Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 10:54 AM

Someone wrote to ask what kind of trap I was using. It's a Havahart (that's the brand name) model #1045. You can read all about it on this page. As you can see, there are doors on either side. You fold them upwards and then the door is held open by a little rod that connects to another rod that connects to the floor panel. When the cat (even the wrong cat) steps on the floor panel, the rods move, the one holding the door open disengages and the door slams shut, trapping the critter within. It reminds me a lot of how I wound up working for Hanna-Barbera all those years.

Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 11:44 AM

Okay, I'm going out for a brunch-type meeting and I don't want to leave the trap set when I'm not here. So I'm going to unset it. Looks like Operation Spay will be delayed 'til tomorrow. I hope The Kitten doesn't have an Internet connection so she can read all this.

Monday, April 7, 2008 at 9:43 AM

No sign of her this morning. So far.

Monday, April 7, 2008 at 4:20 PM

The Kitten showed up at my back door around 3:45…very friendly but refusing to go into the trap, no matter how yummy the food in it was. I think she's been reading this weblog and knows what I'm up to. I finally went out, pet her a bit and then attempted to place her into it — gently at first then, when she fought like mad, with all the strength I could muster.

Didn't work. She kicked and flailed and never remained in a position that would enable her to fit through its door. Then she banged the cage, the door slammed down…and I had no choice but to let her go. I couldn't take one hand off her to open the cage.

She's sitting out in the far side of the yard, refusing to go anywhere near the cage which I have reset. If I can't get her into it in the next thirty minutes or so, I'm going to have to put it off 'til the morrow. The vet won't take her after 6 PM and it'll take a good 45 minutes to get her there.

Monday, April 7, 2008 at 4:52 PM

Okay, I'm giving up for today. Tune in tomorrow…same cat-time, same cat-channel!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 7:53 PM

There was one season of Hawaii Five-O where it seemed like every week, about forty-seven minutes into the show, the following would occur. Steve McGarrett would be sitting in his office after hours and with the lights down. Everyone else would have gone home for the night but McGarrett, being the dedicated supercop that he was, would be sitting there, just staring out the window, wondering about that week's master criminal who had to be caught in the next thirteen minutes, not counting station breaks.

Someone would find him there…someone (say, Danny Williams) who'd come back to the office late because he forgot something. He'd be amazed to find McGarrett still there, still on the job. But he'd also be unamazed because he, like everyone, knew the kind of stuff from which Steve McGarrett was made. "What are you thinking about, boss?" he'd ask, even though he knew full well what McGarrett was thinking about.

McGarrett would swivel around in his office chair and point or otherwise indicate the window with its beautiful nighttime view of Hawaii. And with a tightening of the throat and jaw, telling us how personal this whole matter was to him, McGarrett would say in a strong but frustrated voice…

"He's out there, Danno…and he's mocking us."

Why do I bring this up? Because The Kitten is out there somewhere and she's mocking me.

I think one of you tipped her off. She keeps coming around — four times so far today and it's just past sundown. Each time, she avoids the entrance to the trap. She walks all around it. She sniffs the sardine that has been placed inside. She acts as if she even wants that sardine…

But does she go in and get it? Ha. If she'd go in and get it, would I be sitting here, resurrecting old Hawaii Five-O memories? She also won't let me get near her at all today. Runs off faster than the audience for some shows I've written.

I wanted to trap her in the morning so she wouldn't have to sit in the trap all night before I can take her in to the vet. Trouble is, tomorrow morning my yard and the neighbor's will be full of gardeners and that usually scares the animal population off for a day. So if I can't get her tonight, it may be a while.

Still, I'm not giving up. Why? Because Steve McGarrett never gave up. Then again, he only had to catch psycho mass murderers. He never had to face the treachery and craftiness of The Kitten. She's out there and she's mocking me.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 9:39 AM

She's still out there and she's still mocking me.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 2:26 PM

Last night, I was up 'til all hours — 4:30 ayem — alternately working on a Garfield project and dealing with a cat who's almost as crafty. The Kitten, as I call her, was around the yard all evening and I actually lured her into the trap four separate times without managing to spring the door and seal her inside. I found, by the way, that chunks of tuna worked better than anything else as bait.

The trap, as I'm sure I've explained, is a long, narrow cage. You open a spring-loaded door on either end and set a rod to hold it open. Inside the cage, there's a little floor panel that's connected to that rod and when the animal steps upon said floor panel, the rod holding the door open disengages and the door comes slamming down, sealing the critter inside.

Well, that's how it's supposed to work…accent on the "supposed" part.

Twice, The Kitten managed to walk in, get the food and miss the floor panel. Her front paws were past it, her back ones were behind it and she never put her weight on it. Now I know how the Coyote feels when those shoddy, inferior Acme products fail to trap the Road Runner.

Third time she went in, I was standing as close by as I dared stand…just inside the patio door. I was poised to sneak out and spring the trap behind her once she was inside — and I came damned close. It's just that I have feet the size of Cadillac Escalades. She heard me and bolted a micro-second before the lid slammed shut. Missed it, as a certain Mr. Smart used to say, by that much.

Okay, I decided. Fourth time's the charm. I got a mop and I figured I'd use that to trip the door from a few feet away. I waited 'til my nemesis was wholly inside the trap and was nibbling Star-Kist…I slid the patio door open without a sound…I hefted my mop handle and started moving it towards the latch…

And then along came a possum.

This big, homely possum came waddling up to the porch in search of the food that's usually out there. The Kitten got distracted and I could see her getting ready to sprint from the trap. I lunged with my mop handle but it was too late. She was past the barrier when it came crashing down. Thanks, you big, homely possum, you.

By then, it was four in the morn. I was tired of it all and I figured it would be at least an hour before The Kitten forgot about the experience and could be enticed into the trap again…if she even came back at all after that scare. So I gave up. I unset the trap (if I left it open, I'd probably catch the wrong cat again or a raccoon or that big, homely possum) and I went to bed. This morning at 8:15 when I checked, The Kitten wasn't around…and soon the neighborhood was swarming with men using leaf blowers so I doubt I'll see her for a while.

I didn't mean this to take so much of your time, people. If I'd known it was going to take this long, I wouldn't have started doing it diary-style here. But thank you for all the e-mails of advice and I hope to end our long national nightmare soon.

Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 9:27 AM

Still out there. Still mocking me. Last night, we danced around for a couple hours. I was working on a deadline and every time I finished two pages, I'd go down and there'd be The Kitten, hanging out on the back porch, crying and wondering where the usual food was and going everywhere on my property except into the trap.

(Memo to The Kitten: The usual food is there, you pussy. It's in the trap. You have to go in there to get it. Do you understand the concept? Get into the trap!)

More than a hundred of you have sent in suggestions and I'd send you all thank you notes but I'm too busy trying to get The Kitten into the trap. I'm doing everything I can imagine working, as well as a few things I can't imagine will work but they're the kind of things you do when you're desperate. No, I have not tried sedating her yet. Apart from the fact that I don't know what you use for that or where to get it, that just feels so wrong to me. I know the vets will dope her up but they know what they're doing and I'm determined to do this drug-free.

My big problem is that I can't just set the trap and leave it. There are too many other cats (and at night, possums and raccoons) who will get snared. I'm not sure the trap will even spring if The Kitten does wander in and I'm not there to spring it. Twice, she went in, dined and strolled out without triggering the door mechanism.

I'm going to keep at this on the assumption that eventually, she will be hungry enough to get reckless and go in. Or maybe she'll just get cocky and go into the trap just to taunt me, knowing full well she can get out.

By the way: You may recall that I "rented" this trap on Saturday for ten bucks a day, and the idea is that if you don't return it in a week, they charge the cost of buying the trap to your credit card. I think I'm buying this trap. I just wish it worked.

Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 11:50 PM

I'm very close to giving up on this. I've been trying since Saturday to get a probably-preggo pussycat into a humane (they assure me) trap so I can take her in for shots and fixing and whatever else a vet can do for this most feral of felines. She walks around the trap. She sits by the trap. She even feigns that she is about to go into the trap. This last is done just to get my hopes up so they can be dashed anew.

So I'm very close to giving up…and I would if I could think of any better scenario. The Kitten is homeless and fertile and will only create a whole litter of others in the same state.

Earlier today, I tried the hands-on approach again. I put on some gloves and had my assistant Tyler standing by with that plastic pet carrier I purchased. I figured it might be easier, if I just picked up The Kitten, to put her in that and then transfer her to the trap. (The vet for some reason requires that I bring her in in a trap, not in a carrier.) It took a half hour of petting and maneuvering to get her into a position where I could pick her up. She did not like it. She did not like it a lot.

She kicked and hollered and squirmed and there was no way to get her little body through the door of the carrier. I finally lost my grip and she sprinted for the adjoining zip code. I've decided this will never work, even if I throw (as some of you have suggested) a towel over her. I think it's the trap or nothing.

Friday, April 11, 2008 at 3:53 AM

I was going downstairs to check on the trap when I heard the snap. It had been sprung! My heart and I raced down and out to the back porch where, sure enough, I found a trap containing one very unhappy feline.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong unhappy feline.

And boy, was it upset to be in there…kicking, howling, slamming the sides of the trap. When I opened the door to let it out, it rocketed out there doing just under Mach 1 and I thought, "Well, we won't see that one in the yard again"…a prediction that held true for a good eight minutes before it was back and heading into the trap. This time, I chased it off before it got all its whiskers through the entrance.

The Kitten apparently witnessed the whole incident and I thought (again, wrongly) that it would make her less likely to go in there. Not so. A few minutes after I'd reset the thing, she walked in, got a few bites of the food in there…and strolled out, missing the triggering footplate. She's good at that.

We always make that mistake of thinking that an animal has a thought process identical to a human. They can be very smart but not in the same way we can be very smart. Well, some of us can be very smart. I, for example, am dumb enough to be up at this hour, writing a script and running downstairs every twenty minutes or so to see if I've caught anything.

Do you know I've written network television shows that didn't last as long as this whole, as-yet-unfulfilled incident of The Kitten? And some of them were almost as funny.

I'm giving up 'til the morning light and I just closed down the trap. I don't think I could sleep, worrying that some terrified, claustrophobic possum was in there being traumatized. It's bad enough The Kitten's going to have to be in there…and note that I still have an utterly groundless optimism that some day, she will be. So good night, Internet. And good night, Kitten. Wherever you are.

Friday, April 11, 2008 at 8:22 PM

Mocking me no longer…

Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 12:32 AM

So I set the trap again around a little before sundown, baiting it with some steamed cod I got yesterday from my favorite Chinese restaurant. I cut a piece of cardboard to line part of the floor so The Kitten wouldn't have to walk on grating when she ventured inside to get the cod. And then I covered most of the trap with a towel and left it there on the back porch where I usually feed The Kitten and many other critters.

I ran down every twenty minutes or so to check on the trap, as I've been doing since I started this hunt last Saturday. This evening, The Kitten was wandering around, occasionally sniffing the outside of the trap, just as she's been doing all week. Occasionally, another neighborhood cat — including the one I caught last night and the one I caught a few days ago — were hovering nearby and I chased them off. Around 7:45 when I checked, that was the situation. A little after eight, I went down and found The Kitten inside the trap…and very unhappy about it.

Actually, "unhappy" doesn't begin to describe it. Screaming. Yelling. Clawing at the cage walls. Struggling to reach through and claw me or anything nearby. Very upset.

I've moved the trap and its new inhabitant into the garage for the night. The expert tells me to keep her in the dark and not to worry too much about feeding her. Apparently, they can't perform the surgery if she's eaten in the last 12 or so hours.

I did not feel joyous about my "catch." Well, I guess I'm relieved that after a week of this, this part is over…but The Kitten is so miserable in that trap — and I can imagine the agony of riding in the car tomorrow, to say nothing of being in the vet's office. I tell myself it's for the better and that it had to be done, and I absolutely believe that. It just doesn't feel like that right now.

Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 1:46 PM

Well, I feel a lot better about the whole thing this morning. As you may recall, I caught The Kitten in the trap last night about eight. I moved it and her into the garage and she was about as uncomfortable as you'd be if I crammed you into one of those little cages. I soon discovered that she was relatively calm and accepting if she couldn't see anything or anyone. If I had the towel over the cage and the lights out, she was serene and quiet. If she saw me coming in to check on her, she began howling. So I stopped going out to check on her.

This morning, I confirmed with the vet that they could take her today and then I went out to the garage. She was peaceful until she saw me and then began howling. (By the way: Remember I said I put a piece of cardboard down on the floor of the trap? Well, she'd gnawed and clawed it into confetti. It looked like Rip Taylor had gotten into the cage with her and done his act. Talk about cruelty to animals…)

I covered the back seat of my car with newspaper and towels, then placed the trap with her in it on top of all that. I was expecting her to yell and meow all the way to the vet's but once I covered the cage, she quieted down and I didn't hear a peep out of her the entire journey; not until I took the trap out of the car at the vet's office.

She should be ready to come home tomorrow, and they say I should keep her in the trap in the garage for a day or two before returning her to the wilds of my backyard.

While I was filling out forms at the veterinarian's office, I came to the place where I had to fill in the name of the patient. It seemed insensitive or wrong somehow to write down "The Kitten" so I pulled a moniker out of thin air…or more likely, a song Groucho used to sing. Henceforth, The Kitten shall be known as Lydia. That's what I'm going to call her in the future whenever I speak to her. Whether she'll be speaking to me remains to be seen.

Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 9:38 AM

I want to thank the 200+ of you who sent in suggestions about how to trap The Kitten and/or messages of interest and concern. At one point when it was looking hopeless and I momentarily thought of giving up, I was emboldened by the thought, "No, no…I have a story going on the weblog. It needs a better ending than me throwing in the towel."

I would also like to thank several of you who surprised me with donations to help pay for The Kitten's spaying and the cost of the trap and such. If anyone else would like to surprise me, here's the donation link. I thank you and Lydia thanks you.

Actually, Lydia can't thank you in person because she's still sitting in a cage out at the vet's office awaiting surgery. As we all know, there is a health care crisis in this country and it apparently extends to the neutering of feral cats. The vet had an emergency yesterday and couldn't get around to her then. I'm assured she'll be going under the knife later today and that I'll probably be bringing her home tomorrow. Also, she can't thank you because she's a cat and she doesn't have Internet access.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 10:22 AM

"I haven't seen a word about Lydia on your site in days, Mark, and I'm worried. Please, please reassure me she is all right. I have come to care about that little cat in a way I do not care about some members of my own family." So writes Jennifer Wahl, whose e-mail was but one of many that's shown up in my e-mailbox the last day or so. Here, as they say, is the latest…

I just spoke to the vet's office and they say Lydia is resting comfortably after the surgery, which was performed last evening. She is already eating which, they say, is an excellent sign. She was pregnant. She is no longer pregnant, nor can she get that way again. She has had all her shots and is now in fine shape, but I'm going to board her there for another day of post-op, just in case, and also because I'm too busy to get out there and pick her up today. Tomorrow, I will bring her home and return her to a backyard which has not seemed the same without her. My house sitter will pay special attention to her while I'm away in the wilds of Manhattan.

And that, pretty much, is that. We can now turn our attention to getting certain members of Jennifer Wahl's family spayed so perhaps she can care a little about them.

Thanks again to all who have sent suggestions, encouragements and especially donations. I didn't start telling this story so you folks would pay the cost of fixing Lydia but that's how it turned out.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 8:32 PM

That's another photo of Lydia, the animal formerly known as The Kitten. Want to know what's special about it? I took it in my backyard about twenty minutes ago. Lydia is home from the vet and back in her natural habitat. She seems a bit skinnier — and not just because she's no longer preggo — but in pretty good shape. I had assumed it might be several days before she got back in her regular routines…if she ever got back to them. But ten minutes after I released her from the cage, she was back in her old favorite location: Right outside the patio door, waiting for me to come out and pet her and feed her. Which I did.

I spoke today to my actor friend — the one who fielded my initial call about what to do about the feral one in my yard. He rattled off some statistics that I didn't catch but the exact numbers don't matter. The quick summary is that a staggering number of cats (more than you imagine) are put to death each week in this country because no one will adopt them, no one will feed them, no one will take them in…and to let them roam free and unspayed is to just ask for more.

One of the many "stray" experts I spoke to the other day said the following; that while it was commendable that Bob Barker spread the word to "spay or neuter your pet," that counsel was missing the bigger problem, which are cats and dogs that are nobody's pet. A pet cat that is kept indoors is not as likely to have kittens as a stray roaming through yards and living under houses. The kittens of a pet cat are more likely to be cared for and adopted than the offspring of a feral feline. More people need to take care of critters like Lydia.