'Tauk to the Animals

A Tale Of Three Kittens

By Ellen Dioguardi

"It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens."
- Cynthia E. Varnado

Behind the Dan's Papers office there's an old barn type building, more like a garage I guess than a barn. We keep extra copies of the paper there and some miscellaneous items used from time to time by our staff. We also have, from time to time, some neighborhood stray cats living there. These cats, some feral, some rather friendly, seem to come and go, but a few make our parking lot their home. They have a grocery store right here and a few other garages both residential and commercial where they hang out. We know that we aren't the only ones feeding them or looking out for them, as they often vanish for a few days at a time. They always return and look well fed and rested so they must have other "caretakers" out there.

Several of us have tried to focus on catching and at least "de-sexing" these strays in order to bring the cycle of kittens and homeless cats to an end. We've been pretty unlucky in this pursuit and I will admit once the summer season hits and we're so busy we can't see straight, we don't spend as much time on this project. We do continue to feed them and our Distribution Manager Tom is really their "Dad" as he makes sure they have a warm, dry place to eat and sleep year round.

About 8 weeks ago Tom announced that we had kittens. It appeared that two of the cats had produced litters. One mother cat was spotted with a lone kitten and then there were three other kittens. These three black babies didn't appear to have a mother. They were hard to find for a while, but we put out kitten food and hoped for the best. About a month ago we started seeing the three black kittens playing around the garage. They have made this their home. They sleep, eat and play in our parking lot and lawn all day. Staff members have gone out and made friends with them. They all seem pretty sociable and while they don't come running when you call, what cat does? They let us pet them, and they play with us whenever we wander out with a string or a twig for them to chase.

They are, of course, adorable. Some of the staff named them, I couldn't go that far - I don't want to know their names. I even tried very hard not to look at them for weeks. I finally gave in; they're jet black with white wisps on their backs and the runt has white markings on its chest. I don't know which are males or females yet. The more I know the less I'll sleep, worrying about them. We are hoping to have them placed with ARF or another animal rescue group. We're prepared to help get them adopted and I'm sure we'd take a collection to help pay for their initial vet bills. We're pretty sure they're literary cats as they must have been born under a stack of Dan's Papers. We're also guessing they know all the secrets of the Montauk Monster and the Hamptons Subway System for the same reason. Anyone interested in giving a good home to a Dan's Papers cat should contact us at our office.

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