Vampire Ginger bites the wrong cat

Ginger, taking time to sniff the garlic

Sadly, many cats get bored enough to chase their own tails.  But Ginger, the "eccentric" orange feral, takes tail chasing to a whole new level.  If I hadn't heard her yelping and then seen her in action, well, I wouldn't have believed it.

Ginger's bizarre new version of tail chasing happened late one Saturday evening.  Interestingly, it was also the night of the full moon.  But I'll let you decide for yourself if there is a connection between Ginger's weird behavior and the full moon.

On this particular Saturday night, I was up late and engrossed in a book.  Three cats were keeping me company as I read, two cats hovering on the back of my chair and one cat sitting on the chair beside me.  The other four cats were off in other rooms, doing whatever it is cats do when humans are not watching.  Suddenly, I heard some scurrying.  Scurrying sounds are not unusual in my house so I continued to read.  The scurrying sounds got louder and more frenzied but this was still not not unusual.  Nightly feline rampages happen...well.. nightly.  Shrugging the weird noises off, I continued reading until I noticed my feline reading companion

s were tensed up and staring at something.  Before I could even turn to see what they were raptly staring at, I heard the first yelp.  And then another.  And another.  Thinking, CATFIGHT, I jumped up to put a stop to it.  But instead of discovering a cat fight, I saw something very strange unfolding before my eyes. 

Ginger, the vampire cat, had left her favorite hiding spot under a couch in another room and dropped by to hang out with me and the other cats.  But unfortunately, we must have been boring her, so she decided to entertain herself.  She did this by rolling and writhing around on the floor while trying to catch her tail.  And when she caught it, she'd bite it and yelp.  One or two self inflicted bites would have been enough for most cats.  But not Ginger.  She'd bite her tail, then get mad because it hurt and bite herself again.  This continued until my laughing startled her.  Frightened, she abandoned abusing her own tail, bolted from the room and dove back under her security couch. 

This chilling display of feline masochism ended without me brandishing a single clove of garlic.  Honest.  Did Ginger learn that if she bites her own tail, it will hurt?  I'm afraid she hasn't made the connections, yet.  But she's 'only five years old'.  There is still plenty of time for her to catch on.  Hopefully, she figures things out before she does herself permanent harm.  And just to make sure she doesn't hurt herself during the next full moon, I'm going to start decorating with strings of garlic cloves.

Vampire Ginger. She only comes out at night.

Ginger, howling at the moon

When the first group of feral feline squatters moved into my yard, I fed them and basically tried to leave them be to do their thing.  Unfortunately, their thing was multiplying like rabbits and before long, they had overrun the place.  Live and let live wasn't working.  So the furry little squatters were spayed or neutered, whatever it took to keep them from multiplying.  Then I planned to revert back to live and let live.

But before the 'Great Spaying Exodus", one cat had a litter of five kittens on my porch.  Then she disappeared and I adopted her kittens.  So much for live and let live. 

This litter of five is different from the outdoor cats.  In fact they are different than any cats I've ever met.  Either they think they're human, they think I'm the mother cat or...they think they're my familiars.  My guess is they're a mix of all three.  Another interesting thing about this "tame" group is that they've retained their feline family trait of not liking humans.  They do tolerate the other humans living in the house but they tend to be  wary of them.  When company comes, the cats scatter in a panic and hide until the visitors leave.  They also dislike other cats.  Since Tommy's been moved indoors, they barely tolerate him.  Fortunately, I think, Tommy is bigger than the rest and a "tad" conceited.  It would never occur to him than anyone could dislike him.  Naturally, it would occur to him that he's hungry.  This hunger occurs to him at frequent intervals, twenty four hours a day.

Anyway, the feline fab five were quite upset when Ginger, the wounded feral was moved onto "their porch" to recuperate.  Fortunately, she's quite familiar with Tommy and he's been showing her the ropes.  Even so, Ginger's progress from outdoor cat to house cat has been slow. 

Ginger finally got bored enough on the porch to begin making midnight forays into the house.  These recon missions only happen late at night after all the other humans are asleep.  And there lies the problem.  Ginger is having an extremely hard time adapting to strange humans.  She's discovered a "safe" place under a couch and rarely comes out until it's dark.

Occasionally, I'll get exasperated in the morning and start moving the couch.  This will flush her out of hiding and cause her to bolt out onto the porch to hang with the others.  But.....before long, Ginger will be back under "her couch".  Until the sun goes down and the moon rises.  Hmmmmm..... 

Maybe I should hang a couple cloves of garlic under the couch..........