Feeding the Multitudes

Last Friday saw the Wife and I on our way home from Bishan after a church group gathering when we stumbled on not one but three cute kittens living in a drain together with their mother.

One was jet black, the other a mixture of black and white and the last one was totally grey.

We estimated that they were no more than a month old and extremely skinny at that.

Which is kind of a no-brainer since the three were strays and have no real access to regular feeding times.

Was tempted to catch the grey one but it was really feral and hissed whenever I got too near.

As it was late and we had nothing on us to make them feel better, we decided to come back the next day - with food, since Nerma's food is being left uneaten anyway, which is sad.

***

Saturday came.

After a silly IPPT session which I failed - for the second week running (haha, no pun intended), we made our way to Bishan to attempt to locate the felines. And boy were they elusive because they were NOWHERE to be found where we saw them the night before.

So we patroled...and patroled...AND patroled some more!

I think we roughly wound around the blocks for over two hours and still there were no signs of them.

I remembered mouthing a prayer for their safety when we finally caught sight of a stray cat that looked vaguely like the mother cat near a rubbish collection house.

But no, wrong cat.

However, we fed it anyway with the food that we brought. It was quite sad to see them gobbling up the food and all the while trying to remain wary of us and the surroundings even though there wasn't any sign of clear and present danger. Such is the life of a stray I guess.

Then we moved on to search for the cats and found ourselves in the multi-storey carpark where we were literally leaving no cars "unturned" as we looked under every one of them to see if the mother and her brood were hiding underneath.

No luck.

But we did find a black, scabby stray and a rather plump (we suspected it is a house cat left to roam) one which we promptly fed as well. Same reactions to the food and also the same, unrelenting fear of the environment.

Sigh.

Just when we were giving up (we even went back to the rubbish house to feed the first stray we saw a few more times), we spotted the little furry darlings and they were hidden in a drain near where we saw them last night!!!

The drain functioned like some Vietcong hideout for them since it's exceptionally hard to spot them if you are not trying and difficult to get at them since the gratings were soldered together and hard to get off. And dun even think about reaching in to grab them because the openings are just too darn narrow.

So what we did was fill the paper box that the Wife always makes at home with good old Science Diet pellets, rattled the box and placed it outside the bunker like peepholes and THEN backed off.

Obviously, the kittens heard AND smelt the food coz after a few wary minutes they squeezed through the narrow gaps and munched on the pellets.

It was gratifying and really satisfying. For the first time, the Wife and I agreed that this was a really meaningful way to spend a weekend as we enjoyed the void deck breeze and watched the cats eat.

After an hour, we left for Junction 8 for a Shrek 3 movie screening (it was ok, but I found some parts not funny leh, you can go to liamxicorner.blogspot.com or better yet, goofyscrewball.blogspot.com for a more indepth review) and also made plans to go back to the kittens again after the show for their dinner as well as trying to get the mom to eat something (she wasn't at the scene when her kittens were eating the pellets).

You can imagine how dark it was at 8 - 9 plus as we took a can of wet cat food and went around again trying to find the mother. We eventually located her (we recognised the slightly drooping nipples from all her nursing) near an amphitheatre and proceeded to give her the food - all the time remaining at a safe distance away in order not to scare her off.

After an hour or so, we finally filled the mom up as she scampered back into her drain home, bewildered that two humans actually came and fed her - to her fill no less.

The Wife wanted to come back again on Sunday so I agreed but I could only meet her later in the day.

***

The very next day, Sunday, got me up really early as there was a Magic tournament which I decided to join after a three month rest from burnout. Didn't do too well, lost all my games since I am almost outta touch and it showed.

Disgusted I dropped after the fourth loss and join the Wife at Bishan St 22, blk 288 (well, if you really wanna know where the cats are) to try to find the strays, mother and all.

Same cycle again, (Darn, the kittens and mom are HARD to find, I tell you), before the Wife managed to find the mom resting under some bushes. We fed her again and this time, it's nice to see that the mom has some glimmer of recognition although she is still relatively guarded. She even planned to give us the slip after the feeding by appearing to run off (when in fact she just ducked back into the bushes, there were blind spots, you see.) and then just as we were given the false trail, try to run back to the drain which was in the opposite direction.

See, cats are damn smart.

I refuse to give in to the ruse and went back to where we were at the feeding spot and sure enough, was in time to see her failed escape attempt. Not that she bothered as she just ran back to her drain home.

We followed back to the Vietcong bunker and lo and behold, saw the other three kids.

With some effort, I pried open the drain grating and placed some food in. Almost immediately the grey kitten (which we name as Greyee), the black-white one (Xiao Hei Bai) and the black one (Charcoal) swooshed out and had a go at the food although Charcoal was too engrossed with swiping at a straw in the drain to eat much and ate it did in the end.

We spent about an hour there, finishing our food stock while looking at the kittens and generally feeling good about it. Of course, the mother was there as well, and it's as if she really does recognise us coz she didn't hiss as much when we were putting the food in. The kittens did hiss a little in their small kitten-ish way but no biggie.

They have been taught to fear after all.

Oh well, that was how we spent the weekend and as for the cats, we plan to feed them for as long as we could because goodness knows how long they must starve otherwise.

No wonder strays do not live for so long. If it's not a rival cat, fleas or unsavory living conditions, it's hunger that will do them in.

The Wife even coomented that our very own TPY community cats were more showy and unafraid of people compared to the Bishan ones which undeniably ALL exhibited that same look of wary cautiousness when coming face to face with our two-legged kind.

I whimsically replied that maybe Bishan has more cat abusers (remembering that my friend who lives in Sin Ming had his cat brutally kicked to death, and the cat even had the strength to stagger home and struggled for days before biting it).

At the risk of making this post sounding more and more like a pet activist one, I only have one true wish - that Singapore of the tomorrows can be a more pet-friendly place.

After all, you are only as human or "First World" as how you treat those around you, especially those who are of a lower level in society or those have no means to defend themselves.

And this definitely does NOT just apply to humans.