Big Ass Cat

I mentioned earlier the large (17 pounds if it's a day) long-haired black and white cat I'd seen lurking in the crawlspace under our home. Yesterday I hear two cats yowling and step out my front door to see big-ass kitty chasing Spike, our neighbors cat, across our yard.

"She's out! I'll close up the hole!" I think.

Kitty heard my thoughts, stopped in mid-lunge, and sprinted back to the house, pausing to stick her tongue out at me in the universal "nynah-nynah" tradition before diving in the hole leading to the crawlspace like Bugs Bunny diving in his rabbit hole to escape Elmer Fudd.

Crap.

I posed my quandry on my cat writers list-serv. I don't want to close the hole and trap the cat under my house, but if she has kittens, I don't want to separate her from them. Their advice is to set a trap, catch kitty, have her spayed/neutered. That doesn't solve the problems if there are kittens under there, but I really don't know how to address that. Our crawlspace is huge and rambling and in some areas there are only inches of crawlspace that a cat could squeeze through but a human never could.

I'm going to see if there are any trap and release groups in my area and if not, I guess Blair and I will be baiting some cat traps this weekend.

That's a bad kitty. =)