Operation Fred-Chapter Ten
I Like What You’ve Done to the Place!
You know how some things seem to take forever, and how other things seem to happen incredibly fast? And sometimes both scenarios happen simultaneously.
Slightly before 10am on the 22nd, the day after the second failed capture attempt and just an hour later than when we found Penelope and Fred lounging together outside, Fred showed up on the front porch.
I was quite surprised to see him there, but he looked decidedly hungry, so I went to fetch a bowl. This time, however, I wasn’t going to sit with him on the porch. I was ready to move this thing forward, and that meant more change.
I had left the door open while I went to the kitchen to get my arsenal of wet food, dry food, and treats. I don’t think he came up beyond the first step, but he definitely wasn’t leaving. He knew there was breakfast to be had.
When I left the food bowl right inside the door, clearly inside the house, I both confused him and intrigued him. I didn’t hover, but I didn’t go very far either. I wanted to see what he did with this new opportunity.
It didn’t take long for him to slink his way up the stairs, keeping me in his sights, but obviously eager. His first tentative bites were taken out of the bowl quickly and eaten farther away on the porch, but when that didn’t pose danger to him, he became more comfortable just eating from the bowl.
The moment that Fred decided to accept food in the doorway, everything changed, and everything began to move a whole lot faster. He ate the bowl pretty quickly, but before I had a chance to refill it, he was gone.
Until Jeff informed me that he had returned to the back porch again, just seconds later. He was happy to enjoy a dish of food there as well, just inside the house, which gave me a new idea.
When I picked up his bowl to refill it again, Fred scampered away as per usual to his safe spot on the porch, but didn’t go into the yard. He was too curious as to what this was all going to mean now, watching me as best he could and even getting closer to the doorway when I got to the counter to refill his bowl.
I did refill the bowl, but instead of putting it back in the doorway, I was ready to try something else. I put the bowl down, father into the house. He looked a little dejected until I also brought out the big guns. Treats!
I made a line of treats from the doorway into the house, all the way to the bowl. If I couldn’t capture him in a kennel, maybe I could just close the door behind him like my friend Jim had suggested! But that would mean I would need to get him in the house and far away from the open door.
Over the next 10 or 15 minutes, Fred began eating treats and exploring the living room a bit. Although I aspired to sneak around behind him to close the door, that was not in the cards that day. Anytime I made any move towards the door, he would bolt back to the door.
Thus, a new rhythm began in our household. No more mosquito-filled breakfast porch meetings for us. Fred was an inside diner now. And although we were no closer to being able to physically capture him, we were getting him used to life inside. If he wanted to eat, he had to come inside for it.
This is also a good time to point out an interesting and expensive fact. All this was happening during our first summer in Houston, and it happened to be an extremely hot summer as well. There were 46 days of triple digit temperatures in the city, and the “feels like” temps were as much as 118. This data is important to know since for several weeks, we had a door wide open each morning and many nights to invite in our furry friend.
But what is money in comparison to a new family member?
We had several days like this where Fred got used to eating only in the house, unless we had to leave early. On those days we did leave food out for him in the morning. Near the end of July, I also had to go out of town for several days, and Jeff was in charge.
Fred was getting more comfortable with us both, allowing us closer, but never close enough to touch him or close the door. But we steadily brought the food in, farther and farther into the house. The only problem? Now we were just days away from being gone for a week together. We were running out of time to capture him, get him fixed, and adjusted, before we had to leave.
It wasn’t looking good…
Momma’s POV–Chapter Ten
Momma’s POV - Chapter Ten
