This Week’s Featured Animal is Dougie
Dougie has been around the farm for a long time. He is estimated to be about 15 years old and he showed up on the farm in 2010. We assumed he was dumped here. It took us a while to catch him in a humane trap and we had him neutered and vaccinated. But Dougie made it very clear to us that he in no way wanted to live inside. So we put him in our barn hoping he’d be a barn cat. But Dougie crossed our highway into our nature sanctuary and he stayed there for several years. He had shelter in our hay storage barn and food and water. He became the nature sanctuary mascot. But in 2018, Dougie suddenly crossed back to the animal sanctuary side of the road and began living on our enclosed front porch. He eluded humane traps over the years as we tried to catch him to vaccinate him. But he just would not go in.
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Until one day, he showed up severely limping and obviously in need of help. He began sleeping on the outside ledges of our enclosed cat porches and was huddled up next to some of our cats on the inside of the screening. Clearly, he wanted to come inside. So we set out a trap on one of the porches at night and were relieved to find him in one the next morning. Dougie let us treat him and then we tried him once again inside a cat room. We chose the room that he hung out closest to when he was outside. That seemed to be his preferred choice of cat friends.
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Dougie does not let anyone pet him and we make it a point to let him live the way he wants to live. He is inside now out of the elements and as a now senior cat, he seems quite pleased with his decision. He keeps tabs on all activity in his room but he just participates at a distance from humans.
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Dougie does not currently have a sponsor but I’m sure he’d love one (or more!). The animals truly do feel the energy of their sponsors!
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