Dear friends (and curious strangers),

On our very first trip to Italy, we rented a car and spent our days wandering the backroads of the Abruzzo and Molise regions. We stopped in tiny villages, some pretty remote, and in each one, one thing quickly caught our attention…cats!

Every village seemed to have its own population of free-roaming cats. They were everywhere...asleep on top of and under cars, perched on doorsteps, windowsills, stone fences, and benches, or hanging out in the narrow alleyways.

Little did we know they would eventually become part of our everyday life.

After buying our home here and settling into village life, we began meeting the local cat residents. It was spring, and several mama cats were out with their babies.

Within a few days, it was as if word had spread through the cat grapevine that new people had moved into the neighborhood.

One by one they started showing up to introduce themselves...or more likely, to see if we were handing out free meals.

On some of our walks through the village, we noticed that many neighbors put out scraps for the cats — leftover pasta, chicken scraps, whatever happened to be available.

One afternoon, I saw a cat stroll by carrying a rat nearly as big as he was. Apparently, nobody around here was going hungry.

Then one day, a beautiful calico showed up in our backyard with two small kittens. She must have decided our yard was a safe place because she returned every day with them.

They looked a little scrawny and seemed a bit hungry, so being the animal lover that I am, I put out a bowl of food. Then of course, they needed to play, so I put out some toys. And because they were wild, I gave them treats, slowly trying to earn their trust.

This was my first lesson.

Which brings me back to a sweet memory…

When my youngest cat-loving daughter was visiting here, she bought a small bag of cat food and some disposable plates. She kept these in her backpack, and when she wandered through the village and saw a cat who might be in need of a meal, she’d leave a plate of food for it.

Like mother, like daughter…

Eventually, mama cat moved on, but the kittens stayed. One of them became friendly. We call him Groot. The other wanted nothing to do with us. Three years later… she still doesn’t, although I am now allowed to stand in her presence.

The following spring, mama cat returned. Once again, she’d managed to hide her kittens so well that we had no idea they even existed…until the day she decided to unload four of the cutest little babies into our backyard.

Just like the year before, she nursed them until they were old enough to fend for themselves…then she disappeared, again.

It didn’t take long before we realized that if we didn’t do something soon, we’d have even MORE kittens.

So, we called the local vet to ask about getting them spayed and neutered.

We learned that street cats are legally protected here. Under modern Italian law, street cats have a legal right to live freely where they choose, making it strictly illegal to mistreat, relocate, or kill a feral cat.

The vet said if we want help with feeding, medical assistance, or sterilizing the cats, we must first register them as a cat colony with the local commune. Then I would have to assign myself as the official caretaker, known as a gattara (cat lady).

It sounded simple enough.

We quickly discovered that nothing involving Italian bureaucracy is ever simple.

As we dug deeper, we realized registering came with a surprising amount of paperwork, responsibility, AND liability. Since the program depends on municipal funding, getting appointments can take quite a while, if at all.

So, without officially registering the colony, we couldn’t request help with sterilizing the cats. In the end, we decided it would be easier just to handle the sterilizations ourselves.

Groot became our test case.

He did great and I was really surprised to find that the procedure cost much less than it would have back home.

The other cats weren’t nearly as cooperative, and the vet told us we would need to trap them.

Easier said than done…

My husband built an old-fashioned wooden trap with a door that slams shut when you pull a cord. We placed it on our upper terrace with a can of tuna inside, ran the cord through the door into the house, turned off the lights, and waited.

It didn’t take long…within minutes we had a crate full of extremely unhappy cats.

We heard them all night long from the cantina downstairs.

The next morning, we loaded everyone into the car for their appointments. That drive down the mountain was one we'll never forget. Let's just say nervous cats don't travel particularly well.

Thankfully, each one recovered nicely, spent a day resting in the cantina, and was soon back to being a village cat.

All in all, seven cats and three trips.

So, one of the reasons we retired to Italy was to travel. Sometimes we're gone for weeks, even a couple of months at a time. And because these cats were used to being fed every day, we couldn’t just disappear and expect them to suddenly fend for themselves.

That responsibility was on us.

So we came up with what seemed like a brilliant solution…we built a gravity feeder.

Our wonderful neighbor offered to keep it filled and make sure they always had fresh water while we were away.

This was lesson number two.

When we came home, ALL the neighborhood cats were hanging around, and some that we’d never even seen before.

Word had spread.

Our backyard had become the neighborhood all-you-can-eat buffet.

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, our lawn and flower beds became the neighborhood litter box as well.

That's when we realized the feeder wasn't solving the problem...it was creating new ones.

So, instead of keeping bowls full of food out all day, we slowly changed their routine to help them rely more on their natural hunting instincts. Thankfully, mama cat had already taught the kittens how to hunt before she moved on.

Now, we only serve a big bowl of breakfast each day, and when they’re done, we pick up whatever is left.

It didn't take them long to figure it out. They're at the back door every morning like clockwork.

After breakfast, they disappear for the day to do whatever village cats do, and by evening they're all back on the terrace, not looking for another meal, just hanging out with us.

Since we stopped leaving food out all day, we've certainly been finding a lot more "gifts" on the terrace...usually involving lizards, snakes, grasshoppers, or the occasional bird.

Looking back, I understand our neighbors a little better now. They weren't trying to make pets out of these cats. They cared for them when needed, but also respected that they were perfectly capable of being what they'd always been…village cats.

We'll always keep an eye on them and step in if one of them ever needs help. But these days, I think we've finally found a routine that works…for us and for the cats.

Everyone looks well fed, especially Groot. He reminds me of Garfield the Cat…lazy and not much of an accomplished mouser. I’m pretty sure he spends his afternoons waiting for the neighbors to put out more pasta.

I’ll admit, he’s spoiled…he comes into the house often, runs straight to the TV, and stares up at it waiting for me to turn on CAT TV.

Some habits are harder to break than others.

With love from Italy,

Jamie

I usually write every other week — and sometimes more when there’s a good story to tell.