I have to confess to sleep-deprived first-order thinking.
I figured it'd be easy: catch cat, take cat/trap to Humane Society, return home to catch up on sleep.
The neighbors said they couldn't bring in their semi-domesticated feral kitties because their housecats are still fighting them over territorial rights. They know it's a problem (I'm referring to the humans) but it's still being solved (apparently not by the cats). But they don't mind that we're setting a trap (still referring to the humans), so neighborhood harmony has been preserved.
We went to the Humane Society and paid our $100 (refundable) deposit for a seven-day [-]trapping license[/-] cage loan. Luckily they have a 24/7 watch and will accept critters at any time. Driving "all the way" to town at 2:30 AM is actually one of the best traffic-free times to do it.
We were told that the trap works best if it looks like a tunnel with a yummy prize at the other end-- put the trap on the ground (not the concrete sidewalk) and cover the trap with a blanket. Maybe it's like crawling into a dead critter's burrow?
The first problem is that using the trap is robbing me of what little sleep I was getting. If I hear a cat within 100 yards of the house then I'm immediately awake and alert to the possibility of imminent capture. If I don't hear a cat within 100 yards then my spouse is sure to hear it and wake me up. And in the extremely unlikely event that we both miss it, when I wake up in the middle of the night I feel compelled to go walk the trap line to [-]get a head start on the drive before morning rush hour[/-] minimize trapped-kitty suffering. Then I have to go back inside to get a flashlight to see what I'm doing, and remember to put on slippers in case of centipedes.
The second problem is catching the right cat. (A subcategory of this problem is releasing the wrong cat.) When I dragged my sleep-deprived assets outside at 2:30 AM to check the bait I was shocked to find a trapped cat staring back at me. It immediately started yowling angrily at me (probably cat language for "Shut off that damned light!!"). Unfortunately it was the wrong cat.
Releasing the trapdoor takes two hands and some coordination. The top of the outer door has to be pushed several inches into the cage before the bottom of the inner door can be pulled up. Note that the cat is quite eager to assist in this process and will actively encourage you with all its claws, I mean paws. It got pretty exciting when the cat decided to squeeze out the bottom just as I let go of the (spring-return) door to get a better grip. We ended up with a very upset cat, a bent cage door coated with fur, and two bloody hands. But the cat made it out (it must've collapsed its ribcage like a cockroach?!?) and raced away. I stanched the bleeding, straightened the door, and rebaited the trap.
I can't imagine what the pictures would've been like, let alone the audio track.
Not two hours later we'd caught another cat. This time I was ready with a ruler (to push in the top outer door) and a dental pick (to pull out the bottom inner door). Much to my disgust it was the same damn (wrong) cat. Slow learner. It was as pissed off by its stupidity as I was. Hopefully we won't see it again this week.
We'd been baiting the trap with a bowl of tuna. In the morning it occurred to me that if we actually caught the right cat then we'd be driving it straight to the Humane Society, where they'd probably leave it in a holding area for the morning vet. They'd be in no hurry to open it and I certainly wouldn't be very interested in driving downtown again a day or two later to retrieve my bowl. (Like I said, first-order thinking.) So tonight we're putting the tuna in an empty yogurt container.
We also realized that we're inadvertently making the yard too inviting. Our property has a lava-rock perimeter wall surrounded by greenery. To make it easier to prune the bushes, we've been cutting them away from the top of the wall. Unfortunately that also makes it the equivalent of a four-lane kitty elevated expressway, secure from dogs and other night creatures. So we're going to let the landscaping grow on top of the wall (bougainvillea and palm trees) to stop the traffic.
Spouse has a new set of earplugs for tonight. At least one of us will get some sleep.
