When Stinky Cheese Just Don't Work

Russ and I just discovered that an alley cat decided to have kittens underneath our house. The cat is gray, with a white mask, and has lived in the alley for a few years. Every time it goes away for a while and I think that natural selection - the other feral cats in the alley - has finally occured, she shows up again, slinking around the corners of the houses, ducking out of grasses in the backyard. Tanya is never happier than when there's a feral alley cat to chase down the alley. If she could talk, I think it would be her main topic of conversation.

But the fly in the ointment is that they're under the house, access to which consists of a small cat/Chihuahua/rodenty opening under the house. It is smaller than a bread box, no joking. So Russ and I have been thinking of clever ways to get those kittens out from underneath the house, before they join Mama Cat in the grand tradition of shitting in our yard, getting impregnated and making new generations of kitties, and (of course), streaking down the alley in total fear as a 10-pound dog lives her dream.

Russ had suggested an elaborate scheme of drawing out the kitties with smelly food, and then, coming at them from different directions, and nabbing them with a burlap sack. It was very Charlie's-Angels-meets-Reno-911. And it almost worked, but I, the Reno part of the equation, let the kitten scoot past me and back under the house. It was those eyes -- Kitty looked at me with those little blue eyes, terrified, and I got paralyzed. We were both frozen for just a second and then, she unfroze. I just watched her disappear.

So now's there the problem of drawing them out again and it seems as if they've gotten wise to the whole stinky-food-lure because neither Mama Kitty nor her kits have ventured out again. A few times in the last week, I've been sitting still for a while - and that tends to happen with the paper volcano of grading that is my job - and heard their wavery mews from under the house. But there's no way to reach them unless they come out on their own.