Oliver redux
All,
I am still positive that I will be reunited with Oliver. Enough people in The Villages care, including many who don't have cats. I think someone or several someones may be feeding Ollie as the cat seen on Pimlico was described as "well fed" and not obviously thin as one might expect.
Ollie has his claws in tact but I don't think he was ever much of a hunter. I can say that as Ollie came crawling out of a storm drain 3 years ago near CR 101 and I did the reverse process of what I am doing now. I.e., scoured the Villages Sun for 6 weeks back, went to every public bulletin board, asked the gatekeepers, called every shelter within a 25 mile radius, all the humane services, animal control, etc. The neighbors on the street had seen the cat soon to be renamed Oliver for about 10 days before I got there and had seen him trying to "hunt", without much success. No one "claimed" Ollie, so I brought him home, updated (or did, for the first time) his various shots against feline diseases, etc and smothered him with love. He was on long term loan to his pet grandparents to cheer someone up when he went missing. It was an accident that he got out and having not lived in The Villages for 3 years, doesn't know which house is his.
Oliver is a smart cat. I trained him to walk on a leash, which wasn't productive in the dog sense but gave Oliver a chance to feel the wind in his fur and explore the great outdoors safely. Cats do not walk in straight lines while leashed so it is sort of a zig zag exercise.
Right now, I've reached out on this electronic bb, distributed about 500 flyers, rdistributed color photographs, ran numerous ads in the newspaper and on the radio station, alerted the manned gate houses, and personnel at various golf courses, purchased several havaheart traps, captured two feral cats (both spayed, vacinated and re-released as per protocols), set traps, policed said traps, caught an opposum (released) and answered many, many calls about possible sightings. Oliver did make the Villages Sun back in May in an article in which another cat went missing and has since been reunited. I am thanking the journalist who wrote the article. And I just keep trying.
Marcia
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