Out of Control!

  Ok, enough with the throwing out of perfectly good.....pets!  What in the world are people thinking?  Our road seems to have become the dumping ground for unwanted, throwaway pets.  It makes me sick.  Those poor animals have no clue as to what has happened and have no clue about survival.  If they are not hit by cars, coyotes attack them.  The few that do survive the first week usually wind up at the Bayou.  I feed what I can but some become so feral that there is no helping them.  Then they become ill through malnutrition.  Come on, people, use a little commonsense!  This is getting out of control!  If you get a pet, feed it, water it, give it shelter and, by all means, get it fixed!  Neutering the critter can only help.

  Speaking of neutering and unwanted pets, we have been bombarded with tomcats, as of late.  It seems that folks throw these cats out thinking all will be well with them.  Once they become feral, not only are they in danger, they present problems for those of us with pets and gardens.  These tomcats can become quite fierce and attack any smaller animal.  Tomcats, also, mark their territories (and even territories that are not theirs) with some pretty foul smelling urine.  There is nothing worse that taking that first deep breath of "fresh" morning air and inhaling the vomit-inducing stench left by a tomcat.  Now, multiply that acrid smell by 5 or more tomcats and it truly ruins the morn.  

The chrysthanemums are the latest plants to be killed by the feral tomcats.

  The spray from a tomcat messes up paint on doors, ruins deck floors and kills plants.  Yep,...kills plants.  My poor garden is catching it!  Each day for the past week, another perfectly healthy plant is literally "fried" by the spray.  The urine is basically nitrogen that can burn a plant all the way to the roots.  Pop used to occasionally use ammonium nitrate fertilizer pellets in the garden but would always warn us that "...a little goes a long way".   We were instructed to place the fertilizer a good ways away from the plant and then the rain would dilute it before it reached the roots.  AND we were to NEVER get it on the leaves!   But when the cat sprays a plant, the nitrogen is not diluted and it burns the poor plant to a crisp.  So far, two cyclamens, three lavenders and a chrysanthemum have been killed.  

  So, between the garden-killing, foul-smelling spray from the tomcats and the nightly cat fights in the yard, I am ready to set a few traps and call animal control.  This is getting out of hand!  It sure makes me glad that Ms, Nycto, the Bayou Princess, stays inside at night!  Even though she is spayed, she does not need to be harassed by the feral cats tossed out by thoughtless people.