Barney's Girlfriend

For over a year now this white cat, which we simply call 'White Kitty', has been showing up around our house looking for a free handout. She used to come right in and wander around the house, sniffing around the furniture. After about an hour she'd want to be let back out where she'd go to the woods accross the street and pounce on hapless rodentia. At first we thought she was abandonned by someone living at the college (Gordon College is 100 yards up the street). She seemed to make a good living catching small creatures and pulling handouts from Lisa and I or the 86 year old lady on the corner. Then one day last fall she stopped coming around. I thought the Coyote got her. Just after the first snow she showed up rail thin and went to town on a can of tuna I put in front of her like she hadn't eaten in weeks. I let her warm up in the house but eventually she wanted out and in no uncertain terms let me know that she was an outdoor kitty.

We assumed she was a stray at that point and thought that she might have been taken in by the old lady on the corner. This spring the old lady died. We didn't see the white kitty for a while. There was an ad in the paper to adopt a white semi-feral female cat with a Wenham phone number on it. We thought she was going to another home.

In the mean time we got Barney who's not allowed outside at all. And given how sick he was when we got him and the occaisional flare ups in the last couple months we felt it was best not risk exposing him to FIPS or FeLV.

Then a couple weeks ago White Kitty came back around looking for a free meal. She sat right on the front porch meowing and waiting for attention. She didn't understand why we wouldn't let her inside but we did give her some food on the porch. Barney fell in love with her the moment he saw her through the glass storm door. She hissed at him, ate the food and ran into the woods. She's been back a couple times since then. Barney watches us feed her with a look in his eyes that I can only describe as pure desire with just a spark of tenderness. She hisses at him, eats and runs off.

Yesterday Lisa found out who owns her. It's a house up the street, on the other side of the swamps. She's not semi-feral or abandonned. She's just an attention-whore/free-meal slut. And she's breaking Barney's heart everytime she walks by.