Wildwood Cafe

There are many exciting places to visit accross the country-side. Sometimes the adventure is right out the door, other times it is not even necessary to leave these 4 walls.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Look what the cat dragged in


Yesterday we had a very unlikely encounter.

This story actually begins a year or 2 ago.

Our garage has a pet door, or used to. One day my dog Amber scratched at the front door to be let in to the house. When Dad opened the door to let her in he was surprised to see that she was wearing the pet door around her neck. She did not seem to be alarmed at all about her predicament; it was just a minor inconvenience. Dad had trouble putting the pet door back into place, and ever since that day it has been left off.

Returning back to yesterday; Dad and I moved a coffee table to the garage to make room for a Christmas tree in the Dining Room.

As we moved things around, Amber let out a low woof. Amber barks at the slightest thing, so I pretty much ignored her. I turned around and was looking straight at the biggest Tabby cat that I’ve ever seen. For obvious reasons Dad and I did not want to have a cat holed up in our garage. The equation is something like this; the bigger the cat the bigger the cat mess. We started yelling at the cat to leave the garage. This cat did not budge.

There was something different about this cat. I said to Dad, “That cat almost looks like a Bobcat or Lynx”. He agreed with me, and we looked it over closer. The strange thing was that besides baring it’s teeth at Amber this animal seemed very tame.

I went inside the house to get my camera. While I was in the house I did an internet search to see what a Bobcat might look like. The animal in the garage matched appearances perfectly.

I took a few pictures which was easy because the animal didn’t show a lot of fear. We tried half heartedly to chase our visitor out, but the more we thought about it the more we didn’t mind having such a strange animal for a guest.

I called the Carl T Johnson Center, which is a branch of the DNR. They called the Sherriff’s office because DNR is not staffed on a Saturday.

A gentleman from Animal Control arrived at our house later that afternoon. The ladies in the Sherriff’s office wanted him to take some pictures. He looked up in the rafters towards the back and proclaimed “I’m sorry but that’s just a housecat”. It was a little disheartening to have our discovery to quickly dismissed. Then he looked over his left shoulder and yelled “Oh my goodness, that’s a Lynx!” The Bobcat must have been scared at the officer’s shock, and it ran for cover in the rafters.

What a joy. Not only did we have a Bobcat stowed away, we also have a house cat.

The Bobcat would not come out of hiding which meant that the officer could not get his Polaroid picture. I gave him a couple pictures that I took.

Amber made quick friends with the Animal Control officer and schmoozed 4 doggie biscuits from him. (As far as schmoozing is concerned I don’t think Amber has an equal).

The Animal Control officer asked us what we’d like to have done. He told us that he had traps that could catch the smaller of the 2 cats. I believe we arrived at the conclusion that nothing will be done for now.

Dad is fond of the idea of showing our Bobcat visitor to my Sister’s families when they come up over Christmas break. After this time we most likely will see if we can have our guests leave and shut up the pet door.

4 Comments:

At 6:50 AM, Blogger Jeremy Stockwell said...

Hey Paul, thanks for thinking of us. We will look forward to seeing your new "guest." Can we stay in the house this time since the garage is already occupied?

 
At 9:27 AM, Blogger Paul Imm said...

That would be fine Jeremy. However the house might not serve a delicacy of rabbit sushi in the morning.

 
At 10:48 AM, Blogger Jeremy Stockwell said...

[Homer]MMMmmmmm....Rabbit Sushi[/Homer]

:)

 
At 6:49 AM, Blogger Paul Imm said...

Hi Cindy, welcome to the blog world.

Keep me posted if you can coax a Moose into your garage.

You may need a bigger pet door for this. :-)

 

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