Tag Archives: kittens in Dickinson North Dakota

I Almost Killed This Cat

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Yesterday evening at work, I pulled a six week old Siamese kitten out of a truck engine.  The driver of the truck did not want this kitten, and she said that she lived next door to a bar, that had a lot of stray cats outside, that she didn’t think that this kitten belonged to anyone.

I wrote in yesterday’s blog post that this kitten didn’t try to scratch or bite me, and I put it in my Jeep Cherokee while I continued to work.  This work site was not a safe place to let this kitten go, there are several packs of coyotes nearby, that come onto the site every night.  After work, halfway through the long drive back to Dickinson where I live, this kitten climbed up my sweatshirt sleeve, it sat on my shoulder fairly still, and it looked out the window at the sights.

I stopped at the Family Dollar store to buy cat litter, a litter box, cat food, and cat food bowls.  I put this kitten in my apartment bathroom with a bowl of water, some cat food, and the litter box.  When I checked on this kitten after about an hour, it had eaten all of its food, drank some water, and it had used the litter box.  I was glad that it knew how to use the litter box.

At the apartment building where I live, pets are not allowed.  I didn’t know how or if I was going to be able to keep this kitten.  When I let it out of the bathroom, it explored the apartment some, but it didn’t go crazy running around everywhere and getting into everything.  It came and sat on top of the back of my lazy boy chair where I was sitting, and it went to sleep for several hours.

Later that first night, this kitten came and sat on top of my head and the pillows where I was sleeping, which caused me to give up my pillows.  Like I wrote yesterday, I have to get up at 3:30 a.m. because I have a long drive to work far outside of Dickinson.  When I got up, this kitten started meowing loudly, so I gave it some more cat food.  I didn’t want this kitten to keep meowing so loudly that the neighbors would hear him.

When I left my apartment at 4:15 a.m., I left this kitten out in the living room rather than shutting him in the bathroom or a spare bedroom where he could do less damage, because if he were confined in a room he might meow all morning and cause the neighbors to complain to the apartment building manager.

Today, driving to work and while I was at work, I thought that I wanted to try to keep this kitten, he was so well behaved, so little trouble, that I thought he would be good company.  I thought of a name for him, and I looked forward to seeing him when I got home.

I didn’t leave work until 6:15 p.m., and I didn’t get back into Dickinson until a little after 7:30 p.m.  I stopped to pick up some carry-out food, I had not eaten all day.  Remember, I left home to go to work at 4:15 a.m., and I was not getting home from work until after 7:30 p.m., that’s fifteen hours later.

When I got back to my apartment and went inside, I could see that the kitten had used his litter box, and he was sitting on the back of the lazy boy chair.  Everything appeared to be fine, but he started meowing very loudly, so I had to stop what I was doing and feed him first to get him to shut up.  I don’t want to get kicked out of my apartment and have to move because the neighbors complain that I have a cat.

When I sat down to eat, finally, the kitten climbed up my back to play around on my shoulders and on top of my head.  This was funny the first time, the second time, and the third time, but by the fourth time and the fifth time, I was getting tired of it because I was hungry, I was trying to eat, I was tired, and I was becoming angry from the nuisance and getting clawed again and again.  I thought about putting the kitten in the bathroom or the spare bedroom, but he would start meowing so loudly that I would have to let him out right away.

Soon, I was angry enough to where I was about to throw this kitten as hard as I could against the wall, in order to make it not exist anymore.  No more worry about the neighbors hearing loud meowing, getting evicted from my apartment, the work of having to move and carry everything out of my two-bedroom apartment, and find a new apartment.  No more having to deal with this kitten, getting woken up by it, having to feed it, having it get in the way of my dinner.

I was sorry that I was so angry from this kitten that I wanted to kill it.  I put my food away, and I went to bed.  I thought that I had better try to call the Oreo animal rescue people tomorrow to try give them this kitten.  The kitten sat out in the living room for about an hour.  I didn’t shut the bedroom door, because the kitten would just start meowing loudly.

After about an hour, the kitten came into my bedroom, and began climbing on me and biting me for about an hour.  Ever since I was a kid, I had cats, and I can not ever remember a cat or a kitten even trying once to climb up my back when I was eating, or climbing onto my bed and trying to bite and scratch me for an hour when I was trying to sleep.

I couldn’t believe how bad this kitten was acting, it was such a change from yesterday.  After he had eaten a lot of cat food, had a safe place to stay, and had gotten some rest, he was the worst cat ever.

The Kitten That I Brought Home

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I have to get up in the morning at 3:30 a.m., because I have a long drive to work, at an industrial site far away from Dickinson, North Dakota where I live.  For the first nine months of this particular work assignment, there were very few people at this site, which is located out in the middle of nowhere.

Several years ago, all of the wildlife in the area realized that there was no hunting on this industrial site.  There was no hunting allowed on this location, because of the risk of damage being done to the equipment by any stray bullets.  Several herds of deer, several packs of coyotes, several foxes, dozens of rabbits, a handful of feral cats, many pheasants, some badgers, and even a wolverine, yes a wolverine, began living at this location.

Not only did all these wild animals move to this location, these wild animals began to have a certain amount of trust towards me and my few fellow co-workers.  In fact, some animals like the pheasants, actually preferred to stay close to where we were, sensing that neither the hunters nor the coyotes would come after them when we were around.  Some of the rabbits would come within three or four feet of us while they were eating grass, believing that the coyotes, owls, eagles and other predators would not try to get them when we were there.

When me or my other co-workers did not want to finish eating the food that we had, we would leave the leftover food in a certain spot for the feral cats.  I felt very bad for the feral cats, they were skinny and not in very good physical condition.  The feral cats did not have any place warm to go when it got to be -10, -20, -30 degrees Fahrenheit.  I felt that at least they could have our leftover food in the Winter.

Late this Summer, everything changed at this industrial site where I work.  There were so many workers, that the rules had to change.  Every day now, there are a couple of safety specialists, and environmental specialists at this site, who are there to monitor and observe everything that goes on.  Their instructions to me, were that me and my co-workers could no longer feed the feral cats, as this would be considered interfering with the native wildlife.

What was even more upsetting to me, was that some of the new workers actually started doing mean things to the feral cats, rabbits, and pheasants on site, to the animals that used to have a certain amount of trust towards the people who worked on this site, that they weren’t going to harm them, and that they were protected.  I am not going to dwell on this at the moment, it is just a fact that some North Dakotans get enjoyment out of hurting and killing animals like cats, prairie dogs, rabbits, pheasants, and deer.

I like cats, but I can’t really have a cat, because pets are not allowed in the apartment building where I live, and I am really just here in North Dakota temporarily for work.  I left a cat back home at my house in Idaho, and I paid the neighbor to feed him, but supposedly he got run over by a car.  I felt bad that I pretty much nearly abandoned this cat in Idaho, but I wanted him to be able to stay on his five acres of land, and I paid a neighbor to feed him, which I felt was the best that I could do for him.

I would like to have a cat, but I shouldn’t have one.  Today at work, at 4:30 p.m, I heard a radio announcement that a lottery jackpot has now grown to $1.5 billion.  I thought to myself, if I won this lottery jackpot, and a reporter asked me what I was going to do with all of this money, I would say, “I am going to get a cat, and then a girlfriend.”

At 5:15 p.m. today, one of the worker’s wives drove up to the site entrance in a new Ford F350 pickup truck.  I walked over to her to ask her if she was here to pick someone up, and she said yes, her husband.  I could barely hear her, because there was this cat screaming Meow!, Meow!, Meow!  I said to this lady, do you have a cat in your truck, and she said no.  I said pop the hood, and she didn’t know what I was talking about, but I knew there was a cat stuck up in the truck engine.

I went and got my work gloves because I was sure I was going to get bit and scratched, I pulled the hood release, undid the hood safety latch, and told her to turn off the truck engine while I went digging for this cat, it was under the air cleaner box.  Within about thirty seconds, a six week old kitten climbed out from behind the radiator, and I grabbed him.

This woman, her husband, and some of the other workers thought that this was funny, it appeared that they did not dislike cats.  I asked her about where she lived, to try to determine if this was one of her neighbor’s cats.  She said, no, she lived next door to a bar, where there were a lot of homeless cats.  I asked her and her husband if they wanted this cat, and they said no, not really.

I put this six week old kitten, which appeared to be a Siamese cat, on the front seat of my Jeep Cherokee, because I was not off duty yet.  If it pissed and pooped in my Jeep, this Jeep only cost me $500, so it was not that big a deal.  It sat down on the center console, and behaved pretty well.  Also, it had not tried to bite me or scratch me.

Ordinarily, I would have just put this cat on the ground and let it go.  But for one thing, this was not a cat, it was only a six week old kitten.  Second, some of the workers on this location were doing mean things to the feral cats, rabbits, and pheasants.  Third, the coyotes, the wolverine, an owl, an eagle, or other predator would have gotten this kitten this very night.

I don’t know what I am going to do with this kitten.  I would like to keep him, because he is pretty well behaved.  Halfway back to Dickinson, he came out of hiding, climbed up my arm onto my shoulder, and sat on my shoulder quietly all the way back to Dickinson and through town, just looking out the window.

I put him in my bathroom with a litter box, some water, and some cat food for about an hour when I first got home.  He drank some water, ate all of his food, and he pooped in the litter box.  So, I don’t have to worry as much as I thought I would about him using the litter box.

Here is a short video of him, he didn’t stay in this basket long: