Sammy is our barn cat. Sammy would love to be a house cat, but we have two dogs who aren’t really fond of cats, so Sammy is not likely to be a house cat any time soon.
Maybe instead of calling this post All About Sammy, I should have called it “All About our Barn Cats,” because the story isn’t just about Sammy. It’s really about two cats, Sammy and our previous barn cat, which we never named but who came to be known as the freeloader.
We’ve had a few barn cats, but none ever stuck around long. They’d go fall in love and run off and we’d never see them again. One day, our very dear friend, who we’ll just call “the neighbor lady” brought over a big
Sammy on a Lap
fluffy cat that was a rescue cat from the shelter, and we attempted to make it our barn cat. She was an ok cat, pretty much a people cat, but she was always looking for a better deal. So, she’d wander off and eventually turn up back over at the neighbor’s house a couple thousand feet away. Our neighbor lady had a plan though.
She decided that she’d bring the cat back to our barn, give it some tasty moist tuna-type food and then tuck it into bed on top of the haystack. She figured it would get used to getting fed and sleeping in our barn and stay there. Well, this went on for several weeks. The cat figured out quickly that if it turned up at the neighbor’s house it would get a nice ride in a warm car back to our barn and get a great meal in the process. It was definitely not a stupid cat.
We eventually started calling it our cat delivery service. Several times a week the neighbor’s car would pull up and deliver our barn cat, who would eat, maybe lounge around the barn a little, then run off again. It never did much to keep out the mice and rabbits, probably because it wasn’t around much.
One evening though, our neighbor lady brought the cat back after dark, and because she’s a very considerate person, she didn’t want to turn on the barn lights and bother our horses. So, she delivered the cat to the top of the haystack as was her habit, and on the way down tripped and fell, and broke her arm pretty badly. We didn’t find out about this until the next day. She eventually had to have surgery to repair the arm, but persisted in bringing the cat back even after her accident.
A few days after she fell, we were out working in the front and a different neighbor and her daughter drove up with a cat in the car, and asked if it was our barn cat, the freeloader. It wasn’t, but he was an extremely friendly little guy and pretty skinny.
Sammy Soaking up Sun
Our little valley is a drop-off point, and I don’t say that kindly. What happens is people from the city drive their unwanted cats and dogs out here to the country and drop them off by the side of the road to fend for themselves. I guess they’re just too lazy or too cheap to take them to the animal shelter or try to find homes for them. It’s really sad. Most of them end up as coyote food, especially the young dogs. The owls and hawks get most of the little cats.
Anyway, we hadn’t seen the freeloader for a few days, so we told the lady if she didn’t find the owner of the little cat to bring him back and he could try out our barn. A few hours later, she pulled up again and Sammy had a new home.
The first thing we noticed about Sammy was he was a really friendly little guy, he’d follow you around constantly, talking to you in his loud voice. And he was a real lover, every time Cindy went out to the barn he’d follow her around and holler at her and she’d play with him and give him nice food. Sammy really settled in to our barn. A couple weeks later, the freeloader quit showing up at the neighbor’s house, so we think it found a better situation someplace, which is good. She wasn’t cut out to be a barn cat.
So now Sammy has the place to himself. He wanders all over our property, hunting mice and lizards and occasionally depositing one in front of our front door, a nice little gift to show us he’s doing his job. Now that it’s warmer out at night, he likes to come
Sassy Checking On Sammy
up to the house to sleep in the fenced yard at night. He probably feels safer there closer to the house. Sometimes he takes a nap in the sun. He drove the dogs nuts at first, but they’re gradually accepting that he’s going to be out there no matter how much they bark, so they’re getting used to him. He seems to like his situation, and despite the fact that he gets cat food and special treats in the barn, he hunts for mice constantly, there and around the house. He just doesn’t eat them, which is also good.
Pretty soon, Cindy plans to take Sammy to town to to visit the vet and get him fixed. She figures that way he won’t fall in love and run off. And we both hope it works, because he’s a pretty nice little cat. But he sure talks a lot.
