Middle of August a cute little black and white spotted cat started hanging out near my branch. Another librarian and I started petting it and talking to it, and the other librarian named her Beanie. We started leaving food outside on the street, and then one day she stopped by with a brood of four kittens. We continued feeding them, and the kittens would sometimes stop by, sometimes with the mama cat, sometimes only the mama cat. Then, a large black Tom cat would stop by, and eat from the same cans as the kittens and mama cat, so we though he was the father cat.
The other librarian and I started talking about getting them adopted, or spayed, or at least building them a shelter that we could leave outside for them. We definitely couldn't bring them into the library, at the very least because of allergic staff.
By mid-September it became very apparent that the mama cat was pregnant, and we thought she might still be nursing the first batch of kittens, so we didn't do anything about getting her and the kittens trapped and spayed. Also, even though the kittens would eat near us, and the mama cat was friendly, the tom cat and the kittens were still basically wild, mostly running if we came too close. I suspect Beanie, the mama cat, is only friendly because of the pregnancy.
It seemed like giving them to the humane society, to stay in little cages, would be too cruel, especially for the mama cat who always lived outdoors, and might be too old to get adopted.
So, up until today, we've just been leaving out food and thinking about what to do as winter gets closer. Our plan was to build a little shelter for them, and then when the mama had the litter, trap the whole family and get them spayed, and then release them back into the neighborhood.
But then, this morning, we found one of the kittens was run over by a car in the street. And now I'm not so sure about our plan. Maybe we should work harder to domesticate them and then bring them to the Humane Society to get adopted? Or, maybe they have FIV, and a shelter would just put them to sleep.
I have two cats at home, who I'm really attached to, who sleep curled up on us at night, and purr us to sleep, and I could never expose them to illness or even just the stress of a new street cat. Yet, when we lost the little one this morning, I realized how attached I'd gotten to feeding them in the mornings, and looking for them on my way to work.