Kitten outsmarted me for weeks, but Alex finally joined our family

By David McElroy · December 13, 2022

Over the past few months, there were three kittens behind a restaurant where I often go. One of the restaurant employees adopted the first one when he came up to her months ago. I found out a few days ago that a gold-colored kitten was caught by some young women who adopted him weeks ago, too.

And then there was the elusive little gray tabby who I pursued for at least six or eight weeks. Nobody could touch him.

He was fast. He was smart. One of the kitchen employees wanted to take him home, but he couldn’t get close to him. For weeks, I couldn’t, either.

On Nov. 25, I finally got close enough to him — as he was hiding in a drainage culvert in the parking lot — to snap a photo of him. When I posted that picture on Facebook and explained that I had been trying to catch him, a friend in North Carolina suggested that I get a trap.

A week later, I was still trying to catch him with my haphazard schemes when my friend texted me to say she was sending me a trap. I couldn’t turn that down. She ended up buying one at a chain store with a location about two miles from the restaurant.

The next day, I picked up the trap and headed out to catch a cunning kitten.

The first trap didn’t work. He walked into the trap and started eating — with his paws firmly resting on the trigger plate. The trap simply didn’t work properly.

Fortunately, the bundle that my friend had gotten contained two traps. The smaller one worked. Roughly an hour after trapping started, I had an angry little gray tabby in a trap. If it hadn’t been for Susan, I wouldn’t have had the trap — and I might not’ve ever caught him. (You can see the first photo I got of him, as well as one of him in the trap, at the end of this article.)

But the little guy wasn’t through outsmarting me. When I got him home, I removed him from the trap and made a short video to introduce him to my Facebook friends. Then I went to put him into the large dog crate where he was going to live until I could get him to the vet.

He slipped out of my arms and escaped into a part of my house with a lot of junk that needs to be sorted (and probably thrown away). I was afraid to move too much around — for fear of hurting him.

For two days, he eluded me — inside my own house. I left the trap out again. After two days, he was finally hungry enough to get caught by the trap. And that’s when everything changed.

He made his first trip to the vet the next day. He’s only 4 pounds, but the vet estimates he’s at least 6 months old, possibly as old as 8 months. He’s going to be small.

Over the last week, he has slowly transformed himself from a scared stray into a loving and confident member of the family. Thomas isn’t thrilled about accepting him as a little brother. Lucy has mostly steered clear of him.

I finally named him Alex. It’s short for Alexander. He’s so confident that he seems like a little conqueror who’s come into the household to take over. It eventually seemed natural to name him for Alexander the Conqueror.

When I put Alex and Thomas together, Alex wants to reach out and embrace his big brother, but Thomas won’t allow much of that yet. And even though Lucy has mostly steered clear, they got close on my bed Tuesday evening — and Alex eventually pounced at her tail once.

A startled Lucy took off, not knowing what to do about the little banshee who was accosting her.

Most of the cats I’ve had over the last 15 years have been too feral to know how to play, but this cat is quickly picking up how to play. He’s amazing. He’s confident. And he’s come to be the new king.

I was already pursuing this little fellow well before I knew that Merlin’s death was imminent, but especially after Merlin died, I was very happy to welcome Alex. Thomas was upset to lose his only real friend when we lost Merlin, so I thought it would be good for him to have a new friend.

Alex has been with us for only 10 days, but it’s already starting to seem as though Alex might be the new king to replace the recently deceased king. He has the same air of royalty and confidence that always made Merlin special — so I like to think he’s continuing a tradition.

I hope that Thomas and Alex will soon be friends. I hope that Lucy will become comfortable playing with Alex and they’ll start napping together. But whether those things work out the way I want or not, we already have an amazing addition to the family.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a kitten or puppy in the household — and it feels very right. The confidence and rambunctiousness of youth is infectious.

I think Alex is going to be a good influence on all of us, including me. As I’ve said before, they rescue us just as much as we rescue them. It’s been a joy to have this little boy brighten up the house. I’ve needed him, even though I didn’t know it.

Welcome home, Alex.

Note: The first photo below is the first picture I was able to get of Alex, on Nov. 25. The next is from eight days later, Dec. 3, when I used a trap to catch him. The third photo is about a week later, when Alex spontaneously reached out to put a paw around his new big brother’s neck. You can see more photos of him on our Instagram page.

Share on Social Networks

I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

Related Posts