Dutch is one of the more elusive kitties, so we don’t have a good photo of him yet. However, he and Princess are featured in the Trap and Transfer video.
April 10, 2020 update:
As of April, Dutch avoids human contact slightly less as a result of an injured leg or paw.
In March, 2020, Dutch began limping around on 3 paws, holding his right front paw up in the air as he hopped. I suspect he injured his leg, knee, ankle, or paw, when jumping out of a tree he had climbed while hunting.
Less human avoidance when injured:
Since he can’t easily do the feral avoidance thing – run away quickly when I go out onto “their” deck and “their” patio – when I go to feed the cats, I’ve been able to get a bit closer and earned more trust from Dutch. Familiarity breeds trust. Still, I don’t get too close, because I do not want to violate that trust. Social distancing? Dutch would hop away even while injured if I got too close. I didn’t even try, because I didn’t want him to get scared and hop away.
After 3 weeks of holding his front paw off the ground and hopping along, Dutch is barely limping now. It is barely noticeable except when he is sitting I notice he is favoring that right front leg/ankle/paw by not putting his weight on it. Now, he can run quickly, with all 4 legs and no obvious injury. It might have been a badly sprained ankle or a small fracture which healed quickly.
Outdoors cats who love to hunt do not have it easy. It is nature, just as it has always been, contrasting in both the most complex and the most simple of terms. They are beautifully free, and with that freedom comes responsibility and challenges to take care of themselves, enjoy happy times, get through difficult times the best they can, and choose they relate to other critters.
As the range of life experiences is with humans, it also is true of cats. Simplicity exists simultaneously and contrasts with complexities of life. For humans, today is April 10, 2020. It is a warm, beautiful sunny day in North Carolina. People around the world are experiencing a complex global pandemic we know as coronoavirus, also known as covid-19. Many people have had to alter their daily routines, and some do not know where their next meal will come from. From the perspective of a feral cat, there are similar contrasts. It is simply a warm, beautiful sunny day, and all the complex challenges of the day will call for distant listening, reacting to changes in the weather, the climbing of trees, and knowing where to hunt in the woods.
Dutch has experienced life, changes in his daily routines, and made it through a very challenging time.