On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 11:00:07 -0800, "Cheri" gserviceatinreachdotcom
wrote:


wrote in message ...

Either way, I just am not a dog person. My favorite animals are
horses, but I love my barn cats too, and have 14 of them. They keep
the mice population down too, and one of them also kills rats. I have
had dogs, and I have even tried to force myself to enjoy them, but I
just dont care for em. The last dog I had, (puppy) drove me nuts
with it's 24/7 barking. I gave it to a guy who wanted a dog, and the
dog saved his life by barking when a house fire started during the
night. I guess there's a reason for everything.....

I totally understand. Lots of people aren't dog people, and that's fine.
It's the people that insist on having them and not taking proper care of
them that are the problem. When I was young we lived on a ranch and we
had barn cats too, but they were truly feral. No way was anyone getting
close enough to pet them or anything like that, and they were never fed
"cat food."

Cheri


My cats get cat food daily, and all of them are very friendly. Only
one of them came here as a feral tom. He just showed up one day about
3 years ago. He would not come near me, but hung nearby all the time.
One day he let me pet him, and has been here since. He does tend to
leave for a few days at a time, but always comes back. I know he
visits other farms, and being a tom, he has his business to do. He is
a very large cat compared to myt others, but he is absolutely lovable.
I have often thought about having him fixed so he stays around more,
but I'm not sure if thats a good idea or not. I dont over feed my
barn cats though, or they would not take care of the mice. When it
gets extremely cold, they all get to come in the house, but stay in a
large rabbit cage because they are not really house trained, and I am
alergic to indoor cats too. I just cant leave them out when the temps
get below zero, but thats only a few days a year.