…so why not spend the weekend in labor? That’s what Taxi the cat is doing – finally. She’s in the early stages, her water has broken, and I think she just wants to run away and let some other cat handle this.
Why Taxi is still at our house when she’s not even our cat: Taxi is one of my sister-in-law’s “barn kitties.” She got knocked up by another barn kitty, and her people want on vacation a couple of weeks ago, out of state for the week. Her people are back, but she’s still here. This is Taxi’s second litter of kittens, and the reason she’s having her second litter here is because her previous litter was…well, I’m gonna warn you, it’s not pretty.
Her previous litter was eaten by another cat who thought the kittens were mice.
I did warn you. So this time, we’re not just letting nature take its course. Even as dimwitted as Oberon is, I don’t think he’d look at a baby cat and say “Mmmmmm, delicious!” (I’m not going to criticize how anyone’s running their farm, but I think the simple solution here would be to get rid of the Kannibal Kitty and let Taxi stay in her natural environment.)
But if that had happened, we might’ve missed out. Taxi’s a very nice cat. She’s playful and friendly and gentle. She’s not front declawed like Olivia and Obi, and yet even though she’s defending herself and her passengers, Taxi has only left on scratch on one nose this whole time. The only other scratches that she’s dished out have been to my knee (she was trying to jump into my lap and misjudged how heavy she is at the moment, and wound up digging in and hanging on for dear life – not really her fault. But it did hurt like hell!) and to my air mattress (R.I.P.). She gets along with the other cats, and she’s given them no reason to not get along with her.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind terribly if this was Taxi’s last stop. She’s a pretty cat, and a very nice cat, she loooooooves Evan, and she’s not at all freaked out by 100 pounds of dog occupying the house with her (Xena got to come in this morning during a nasty storm). I think she’s passed the audition. Evan clearly likes her too – he’s even learned her name in record time.
Today she jumped down from his bed and her water broke when she landed. Evan was watching her and obviously saw that this wasn’t a normal event – cats don’t go splat like that. He said “You okay, Taxi?” Sure enough, she was having to make more of an effort to walk, and she slowly made her way back to home base (i.e. the master bathroom), occasionally leaking a bit.
At this point, I’ve set her up with food, water, clean litter, and a nice safe, warm, quiet place…the rest is up to Taxi. It’s time for the passengers to disembark. In the meantime, the other cats are pacing around like they’re in a maternity ward waiting room. Even Xena is huddled up by the back door, which is slightly unusual. Everyone seems to know that something that’s not an everyday event is taking place.
I’ll post kitten pix as soon as they’re here. And then I think it’s time to have a conversation about the poor mama cat becoming a retired barn kitty who lives with us.
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