Last spring, I started feeding the three stray cats that had been hanging out in my backyard. We named them Scout, Scratchy and Spooky. Over the summer and fall, I developed a special bond with each of them, a delicate balance of trust and caution, and probably a lot of projection on my part.

Scout, the smallest, youngest and cutest, represents my inner child. She is curious, playful, vulnerable. I can tell that she wants to be loved, but is scared to get too close. She was the first one to “speak” to me, using sounds that cats typically don’t use to communicate with one another. She has a tiny little voice.

Scratchy is my old soul. He is world weary, tired, wants to be left alone, doesn’t have a lot of fucks to give. He avoids drama at all cost. He doesn’t get too close and will hiss at me if I approach too quickly. Most of the time he just chills and waits for me to bring food out.

And then there’s Spooky, my shadow self. He is wild, feral, anxious, confused, pure id. He doesn’t know how to manage his emotions. He boldly comes to the patio door and demands to be fed, but when I bring out the food he gets agitated, growls and hisses. When I put the food down he sits quietly and looks at me with the cutest face, waiting for me to leave before stepping to the bowl to eat.

I love all three of them equally and I care for each of them in different ways. This will sound silly, but caring for these small vulnerable creatures that may not have the capacity to love me back has taught me a lot about unconditional love.

A breach of trust

Recently Spooky started exhibiting more territorial behaviour. While Scratchy doesn’t let himself get bullied, Scout is smaller and less able to stand up for herself. Spooky would sometimes chaser her away, and she started showing up less often. I got worried that Scout would stop coming around. With temperatures dropping, I’m also thinking of how to provide shelter for them during the winter. After discussing it with my partner, we decided to try bringing Scout inside the house.

I started leaving a pet transporter out where I was feeding her. Then I started putting the food inside the cage, so she would have to go inside it to eat. Then one day, wearing protective gloves to avoid getting scratched, I swiftly closed the door while she was feeding and trapped her inside.

She didn’t like it. Nor did she enjoy the visit to the vet. And so far she doesn’t seem too happy to be living inside the house. For now, she’s confined to the guest bedroom and she spends most of her time hidden under the bed. She comes out to eat, drink and use the litter box, but not while I’m in there with her. I haven’t been able to interact with her at all.

It’s only been five days. I’m told this is normal behaviour for cats that have never lived with humans and that it could take months before she starts to socialize with me again. I knew this wouldn’t be easy and I thought I was prepared for it. But if I’m honest, I’m a little heartbroken.

I feel like I betrayed her trust. All the progress we made this year, getting closer while respecting each other’s boundaries, that delicate balance - it’s all gone. While I used to be a provider for her, I am now her captor. I keep asking myself if I’m doing what’s best for her or just what I want.

Am I the villain?

Content farms can’t help you

When I turned to the web for advice, I found hundreds of pages giving variations of the same advice from dozens of domain names I’d never heard of: Wiki how dot pet, catster dot com, vet explains pets dot com, pet shun dot com, happy whiskers dot com, cats loaf dot com, the fluffy kitty dot com, beacon pet dot com, community concern for cats dot org, feral cat dot com, pet helpful dot com, cat hideout dot com, petful dot com, A-Z animals dot com, pet place dot com, feline fascination dot com, scaredy cats dot com dot au, cat centric dot org, alley cat dot org, kitty reporter dot com, I heart cats dot com, kitty wise dot com, and on and on it goes.

Who could possibly benefit from this proliferation of information distributed across so many dubious platforms? Certainly not this “user” looking for an answer to his simple question. Everyone knows cat content is popular online, so if you’re a content farm looking to attract clicks to generate ad revenue, pet owners looking for advice are an easy target. I kept scrolling through search results looking for a reputable source, but at first glance it all seemed equally bad. Some of the pages were even illustrated with uncanny valley AI-generated images. I started to wonder how many of the articles were also written by ChatGPT.

In the end the best advice I got was from friends who had experience trying to tame feral cats. It seems there is no guarantee that it’s going to work and the only thing one can do is be patient and hope for the best.

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This week’s recommendations

• On American Hysteria, Chelsey Weber-Smith has a great conversation with Perry Carpenter about AI, deep fakes and disinformation. He suggests that being able to tell the difference between real and “synthetic” media may not be that important, and that we should instead cultivate an attitude of “healthy, non-paralyzing skepticism.” Worth a listen.
• On Prime Video, My Old Ass is a clever, heartwarming and queer coming-of-age story about a teenager who gets advice from her 39-year-old future self (played by Aubrey Plaza) after a mushroom trip. It’s the second feature from Canadian writer-director Megan Park. See my review on Letterboxd.