By MEGAN ERICKSON
First I saw the tufts of hair at the tips of the ears, and then I saw a striped fore´head and finally a pink nose.
“Hey buddy,” I cooed to the stray cat peering at me from under my neighbor’s shed. “Aren’t you pretty?”
Soon his orange sibling appeared and they both perched on the wood railings, blinking at me in the sun. I took a tentative step and in a flash of gray, black, white and orange, they scurried back under the shed.
It turns out that a stray female randomly chose my neighbor’s yard as her den. My neighbor has been putting out food and water, and has tried to catch them to take them to a shelter, but no luck.
I worry about them getting under the wheels of a moving car, or between the teeth of a mean og, but I can’t take them in, as I have two cats myself, and how would I catch them in the first place?
That’s why the book “The Cat Who Wouldn’t Come Inside” by Cynthia von Buhler caught my eye. It’s a children’s book based on a true story about a woman who befriends a stray cat. The pages are actually pictures of sets she made out of clay and other materials. Buhler is an artist who has illustrated and written several books, but this book is her first as both author and llustrator.
The story details her attempts to try to coax a stray cat to come inside her home. Each time he comes to her house, she leaves him something, such as milk, tuna and a rug. The text is repetitious; each time she repeats the previous item. It will help the memory of your little reader.
Buhler does talk about her experience in an author’s note at the end of the book. Unfortunately, the first time her real-life stray cat entered her home was also his last; the cat died in her
arms that night. That might be an author’s note to share with your child when he or she is
older.
The book also touches on the virtues of patience and trust. The main character patiently provides that cat with food, water and shelter in order to gain his trust. Donna Suereth of York Township
knows patience all too well. After feeding a couple stray cats led to about a dozen crowding her back porch, she has been working on gaining the trust of the four kittens of the bunch. She hopes to then take them to get spayed or neutered.
“They’ll let me pick them up for a little now,” she said. “But they are mostly interested in the food.”
But it’s never too early in a child’s life to raise awareness about stray animals. Melissa Smith, executive director of the York County SPCA, said feral cats are a big problem in the area, and people should use shelters such as the SPCA as resources.
“A shelter can give advice on how to proceed,” she said. “Also, the animal should be reported as found in case someone has lost the animal and is looking for it.”
She said people are also torn as to how to alleviate the problem, whether it’s to spay and neuter the animals and then release them or to euthanize them.
Suereth said she would love if someone would take them in, as she can’t and would hate to see them euthanized. She said she’s willing to pay for the spaying or neutering if only the cats can find a home.
“I just feel so badly and hate to see them homeless,” she said.
Smith said overall, the main solution to the problem of stray animals is responsibility.
“They must take care of their animals to make sure they are not reproducing,” she said “Also, people have to do the right thing when they find an animal. One should not keep an
animal that they cannot financially provide for.”
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