OPERATION: Get The Kittens Off The Damned Roof…Day 1

So, there’s this pizza restaurant down the street. The place has decent pizza and a cat on the roof. The calzone’s not too bad either. Did I mention the cat? Seems a neighborhood stray has decided to make her home on the restaurant’s roof. She climbs a tree that is a short leap to the roof and does just that….leaps to the roof. Now, that’s all find and dandy. Not a bad place to live if you’re a stray cat. No dogs or people to bother you, the constant smell of pizza and close to the garbage bin that has a never ending supply of scraps to dine on. Pretty smart stray if you ask me. The problem is she took it a step too far. She decided it was a great place to raise a family as well and had a litter of kittens on the roof. While a roof is a fine place to live if you’re a cat, it’s pretty lousy if you’re a kitten. Oh sure, the first month or so is great. Mama’s weaning you. However, at some point the kittens are going to need regular food and they are too small to make it off the roof. This is where I come into the picture……lucky me. The guy who runs the restaurant knows I take care of some strays so he asked me if I could help. I, like an idiot, said sure.

 At 8 am I loaded a big freakin’ ladder into my car. This was a chore in itself. Big ladder…small car. My rear seat folds down so I stuck it in the trunk, over the rear seat and up to the glove compartment. Not pretty but it worked. Grabbed a couple cans of cat food and was on my way

 

 

Got to the restaurant and saw the momma cat and the kittens on the roof just sitting there. Cool, this was gonna be easy.

 

 

 

 

 

 Unloaded the ladder and placed it against the wall. Climb the ladder and watch the kittens scatter. Seems they not only live on the roof but in it as well. There’s a nice hole where a board had fallen off part of under part of the roof. It’s hard to see but the fallen board makes a nice ramp that leads into a section of the roof where it rises. Ok, maybe this isn’t going to be all that easy after all.

 

 

 I put some cat food out for the kittens and wait. The momma cat eats all the cat food. Hoping that the mother has had her fill I put another can out and wait some more. Still not kittens. I get off the roof and go get a coke. When I come back I check and see the kittens eating the food. I get on the roof and sneak up to the kittens. Three out of the four take off like a shot and go into the roof again. I get the fourth one and get him into a pet carrier that I placed on the roof during my first trip up there. After I get the kitten down I wait for a while to see if the other kittens come out again. Must have spooked them good as they were no-shows. I’ll try again this evening but for now I have one new kitten in the house.

 

 This is Gutter. He is scared to death. Probably the first contact with a person he’s had. Gonna take some time for him to get used to things. Seems pretty healthy but hungry. He’s hiding under the towel caddy or whatever you call it in the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 Here’s a little bit better of a picture. You can’t tell but he is shaking like a Chihuahua after a couple Espressos. Hope I can get, at least one more of his siblings. Might make him feel safer.

 

 

 

So, who wants a kitten?