Cats were deemed sacred by the ancient Egyptians and killing a cat was considered a capital crime. Family cats were even mummified and buried along with their loved ones.
Some cultures believed that black was a protective color and that black cats had the power to ward off negative forces. Many believed black cats are reincarnated being capable of foretelling the future.
“Momma Cat” (the kitten machine)
New neighbors had moved in just up the street from us in Key Largo and it seemed no one in that family spoke English so they stayed to themselves. I noticed they had acquired a tiger cat they kept outside. They also ran a drive-through drug outlet. A car would stop by and honk once for one bag and someone would pop out and make the exchange. Before long I noticed the tiger cat moving kittens around out of the way of the frequent stop-by traffic. After a few months the drug dealers moved on leaving the tiger cat behind. She eventually migrated to the abandoned house across from us where she had another batch of kittens. Some of the kittens would wander across the fairly busy street to eat from our one outside cat’s dish. The mother cat never came over. We trapped several of the kittens and took them to the local free spay and neuter clinic and set them free. One of the kittens made friends with Sam, our inside cat, through the glass slider. We let her in, named her Tootsie and she and Sam became inseparable and would hunt bugs together at night. Our place was bug free.
The tiger cat we named Momma Cat kept having kittens. I think a lady who lived behind the abandoned home was doing something to or for the kittens. Some came over just to eat and several stayed on as regulars for breakfast and lunch. More than I like to think about were killed by cars.
Momma cat was a wily creature and wouldn’t come over to eat so I fed her across the street. She would see my red van coming down the street and where ever she was she’d be running to the feeding spot. I tried to trap her for two years to no avail. Her achilles heel was that she wouldn’t let any of her kittens eat before she did. I put a can of tuna in the trap and as a kitten ran in to eat, so did Momma and I trapped them both. The kitten on a later day was hit by a car and Wendy brought it in and nursed it back to health and he received the name “Booger.” Momma now spayed, still live across the street and as the time came to move north, I worried about being able to trap her again. I talked the local vet into some pills to drug Momma, knocking her out and caging her. He said one pill dissolved in tuna juice would do the trick. Right….. He had given me 5 pills and on the 4th pill she was so groggy she could barely stand and as she was drinking the tuna juice barely in the cage, I had to dive, push her in and slam the door closed. I drove to the Key Largo Winn-Dixie for a bottle of champagne. Momma Cat was going north.
Today, Momma Cat is happy in the big cage. She has her own feeding spot and staked out her own “condo”. I can see she’s slowing down. The grand dame and mother to many kittens is given special care, lots of love and not doing too bad for her start as a drug dealer’s cat who was abandoned.