We caught Lion!

Donna
Apr 12
2 min read

You might remember that Dineen moved 7 of her 8 colony cats to Caldwell with her.

Lion could not be trapped, even though he loved Dineen. He was trap-shy and incredibly cautious.

Back story… https://www.gcccproject.com/post/goodbye-old-friend

Over the years we trapped so many cats and kittens!

Lion was among the first bunch of kittens our foster\ adoption volunteer, Jenny, adopted out. She found wonderful homes for all of them, but Lion. He kept getting returned because he wasn’t friendly, just mopey.

Dineen said she would be glad to take any of the kittens back so we brought Lion to her, wrapped in a blanket.

When we handed Lion over to Dineen, he literally put his arms around her neck.

Now, fast forward. It was time to move, and all the other cats were easy to collect, but Lion was still afraid of traps or carriers. She had to move to Caldwell without him and was brokenhearted.

Dineen’s daughter, Michelle, lived around the corner, so when Michelle came and fed him

Lion peeked out from under the deserted trailer every night.

This went on for about 3 months. Then Michelle called GCCCP and asked for help. They were refurbishing the trailer to rent and time was running out for Lion.

The pieces of success were the connection between Lion and Michelle and a drop trap.

Lion loved it when Michelle came to visit with food.

Michelle asked Lion to smile for Dineen 😊

No one else could be there to pull the string on the drop trap, and every night Michelle would pull into the driveway where Lion was waiting, but never too close. Because the drop trap stayed up, she just placed the food inside and stood by the car, string in hand, talking to Lion, like she always did.

If or when we were successful, I would need to transfer Lion from the drop trap to the small trap. I parked out of sight after placing a cell camera to show me what was happening.

It took 5 evenings of this, 2 hours every evening, rain or shine, until everything came together!