Earlier this year, I wrote an impassioned plea about the need to get male cats castrated being as important as getting females spayed - you can read it here.
One of the reasons for this was that a male cat had turned up chez nous following his hormones and the scent of a female cat on heat. When he arrived, he was well fed, with a flea collar and with the gangley awkwardness of a young cat who hasn't filled out properly yet. We think he had travelled a long way to get to us - no one in the village knew or would admit to being his owner.
Over the three months he lived in our garden, he lost condition badly (despite being given or stealing some food), he got beaten up by older, more experienced male cats in the area, he lost his flea collar, he developed a huge abscess on his leg and the final straw was that he got shot at by someone with an air rifle. We spent over 100 Euros taking him back and fro to the vet and feeding him, worming him and giving him flea treatment.
We put up rather pathetic notices with lovely photos in the bakers, the Mairie and the veterinary surgery and I called a number found at the vet's for someone who had lost a cat of his description, but just got laughed at.
It couldn't go on, so we have found him a new home. He has a new name - instead of Elvis (from the phone call) or Sh*t for Brains (he isn't the brightest bulb in the packet) - he is now Barney. He goes to the vet on Tuesday to be castrated, and in the mean time, he has the run of a lovely water mill in the country, and two people who love him to bits. I hope that is the end of the drama and he can enjoy the remaining 5 lives he has left with them.
Here is Elvis when he arrived around us.
And here is Barney a day before he went to his new home.