The trap thief revealed

After a week of snow and rain, I was ready to once again undertake to trap feral fertile female number 3, aka Socks. She's wild, and made even more so by being the object of many a tomcat's pursuit. In fact, she disappeared for a couple days. When she showed back up yesterday, skittish as ever, I started planning.

(I must interject here that her sister disappeared a week after she was spayed, but her mother has stayed close by. I wish Stripe well and my only solace is knowing that wherever she is, she is spayed and has had her rabies shot.)

Back to Socks. I put the trap out where she usually stays and managed to catch a tomcat of unknown owner. I let him go, hopeful that he is more trap-wary. This morning, I decided to try an early day regimen using cat food instead of pork ribs.

The last time I did this, I found that my bait would be gone and the trap empty. And so this happened again this morning as I watched backyard cat Sammy ease his way into the trap, consume the food and leave. Obviously, my trap was not as trap-worthy as it should be. If well-formed Sammy could scoot in and out, then I had no hope of catching little Miss Socks.

WD-40 in hand, I went to work on all hinges and lectured Sammy not to go in again, as this time he would not be so lucky. Sure enough, I went inside and watched him practically run into the trap for the fresh food. It was a good 5 minutes before he realized his predicament. Another lecture and I let him go. This time, when I put fresh food in, I went upstairs to dress and didn't come down for another hour or two.

That's when I let Sammy out AGAIN and closed the trap. I had no more patience with it for the day.

Tonight, I'm going back to pork ribs, which he does not seem to favor as much as canned cat food. But should my newly discovered trap thief go back in, it could be morning before he gets his freedom.