The Line for the Buffet Starts Here

Apparently, animals can pick up on the scent of someone who is a sucker for feeding them upon demand, whether they belong to that person or not.  Hubby has the scent.  He can't help himself.  I used to think he could, but I've finally decided it's a disease.  He can't stop.  He feeds the domestic animals and the wild animals.  I don't even want to know how much money he spend each month on feed.  He feeds the birds, the deer, the raccoons and the foxes, and he keeps treats on hand for several of the neighborhood dogs.  He's a regular Ponderosa for critters. 

And now, he's feeding this guy.  Isn't he a beauty?

He's a stray that wandered the perimeter of our yard at random for weeks.  He was extremely wary of any human being, and you couldn't get near him.  He was terribly scrawny and seemed starved.  Occasionally, he would eat the scraps we threw out at the edge of the woods for the raccoons.  But we left him alone because we didn't really want another cat after Sabrina passed away, and he was pretty wild.  But then gray kitty got close enough to us one day that we could see someone had painted red paint all over his back.  I'd like to think that kitty wandered under a freshly painted fence, but it really did appear that someone had done it deliberately.  We felt really sorry for him and tried to get him to come closer to us so we could get him some veterinary help.  We were afraid the paint had clogged up his pores and would kill him.  Is that possible?  I don't know, but we worried about it anyway.

We kept setting food out, and if we stayed far away from him, he would sometimes come close enough to eat it.  Long story short.....over the course of several weeks, the paint wore off, he started to like us, and now he eats out of his own bowl right by the garage.  He comes to the garage every night for his dinner and some head rubbing.  If we can isolate him long enough, we're going to have the vet run by and give him some shots, so we don't die of rabies from petting him and forgetting to wash our hands.  You can call him Smoky. 

We didn't want another cat.  Or did we? 

Oh, and the neighbor's cat, Patty O'Bell, who is used to getting her own meal of Meow Mix at the Hula-gen home each evening is not happy with the new interloper.  Not happy at all.