Kittens & Little Disappointments

Rain is tapping like a crow on the windows when I let the dogs out and the little dachshund makes straight for the dilapidated garage.  He hesitates at the old doggie door, cocking his head as if listening, then darts through.  I hear him padding around and exploring and then he begins to bark, steady but not panicky.  I imagine he's cornered a mouse or a wayward squirrel and don't pay much attention but he doesn't stop and suddenly the barking gives way to a series of yelps and a howl of pain.  With no idea what's wrong, I nearly break my neck to reach him - he's half in and half out from under an old church bench I've been meaning to do something with for the last decade and a half - back to barking and wagging his tail frantically.  It's only then that it occurs to me that this can only mean kittens.

After making sure he's intact and not bleeding anywhere, I manage a mild scolding and shoo him out then hunt around for a flashlight.  The garage is a repository for ten years of junk and debris, not to overstate it but it's a hoarders heaven, and it takes some doing and more agility than I have to climb over and under and around the bench, the extension ladder, the abandoned washing machine, the paint cans and trash, the bags of old clothes I'd meant to take to Goodwill, the leaf blower I'd forgotten I even had.  I have no idea which stray, homeless cat I'm going to find but I do know she will have found the most inaccessible place possible.  I creep, crawl and make my way under the workbench and through a haze of cobwebs and shine the flashlight and finally, there she is - it's the pastel tortoiseshell, a familiar face that's been roaming the neighborhood for years - a street smart old girl who's evaded all attempts at capture, not quite feral but close.  Like Blanche Dubois, she has always depended on the kindness of strangers.  Pressed tightly against her belly are two tiny kittens, one orange and one tawny. Their eyes aren't yet open, they haven't been long in this world.

I've always tried hard not to feed the neighborhood strays but rules are made to be broken and this is a nursing mother who's not had an easy life.  I bring her a bowl of water and a dish of food, place them within her reach and back away.  She watches intently, protective and not quite trusting but not openly hostile.  She's a wise old lady and she's been here before so I leave her to tend her babies.  It's time to have a facts of life talk with the little dachshund - I imagine it's come as a quite a shock to him that not all cats are like his cats - some would actually rather not be chased, humped, pulled around like a chew toy or have their food stolen. I hate to be the one to disillusion him.

It's a one sided conversation, as they always are, but he listens patiently, head alertly cocked, soulful eyes never looking away.

Sometimes, I tell him soothingly, things just aren't meant to be.

He looks at me expectantly and whines. 

Exactly, I say, So we - and by we I mean you - are going to give her some space with her kittens, meaning the garage is off limits for now.  She needs her rest and you're a disruption.  Don't take it personally, ok?

He lays his shaggy-faced head on my knee and sighs.

I know, I tell him, but life is full of kittens and little disappointments.  

The next time I let him out, he rushes straight for the garage and I have to take a sharp tone when I tell him no.  He gives me a sorrowful look and reluctantly changes direction, trotting off toward the back fence as if it were his own idea.  

As it turns out, I've misspent my time and energy because the tortoiseshell thinks better of her little refuge and a day or later moves herself and her litter to parts unknown. Despite a hard target search, the little dachshund comes up empty several times and finally loses interest - out of sight, out of mind - and we turn another page in this book of life.