Extending the Sanctuary: Cat Tales,Part II
In part 1, I had just ordered a cat bib online after our cat Ruzz caught a waxeye. It’s now a few weeks later and I thought it was time for an update.
Ruzz sporting his new cat bib
The bib arrived a week after the order via catbib.co.au (which was hassle-free) and Ruzz seems to find it no problem at all. It’s made of neoprene and attaches around her collar with velcro. Getting the cat used to the collar itself seemed to bother her far more than this. When she sits or lies down, it slides to the side.
She walks, jumps and behaves completely normally when it’s on and we take it off when she comes in at night. It will need a wash at some stage, but seems fine so far after a couple of weeks of wear.
No birds (or mice or skinks) have been caught so far since she’s been wearing it, as far as we know – and you usually know when the cat wants to show off their prey! All it does is get in the way when the cat tries to pounce.
The best thing is that the bib makes me feel a whole lot better about having a cat. She will be our last cat, but in the meantime we are doing something positive to keep the birds around here safe.
The other thing that the Halo project has motivated me to do is to get together with interested neighbours and see if we can make our little bit of Wellington a little bit more bird-friendly. One neighbour has emailed me already to say she is a Halo member and has been feeding birds for several years already. Another offered me some cabbage trees to plant. Exciting! More may come out of the woodwork at our meeting this week.
It’s just a small start, but the plan is a long term one, and it feels good to be doing positive something around here.
