Little did Westsiders Jeff and Linda Boody know that purchasing a warehouse in West End would include “the whole kit and caboodle.”
When the owners of J & L Home Services bought the facility over a year ago, the couple said, they didn’t realize they would also inherit a small, resident colony of feral cats. Animal-lovers both — with two rescue dogs and six indoor cats at home — it didn’t take them long to start caring for this feisty mob.
“Now we feed fifteen to twenty a day, though that depends on their mood,” joked Linda Boody.
But, more significantly, the Boodys have been trapping and spaying the adult cats as fast as possible. However, there are always a few that slip past until it is too late.
“Three of the females brought us their kittens this year,” explained Jeff Boody. “We took them in and had them adopted. We were able to catch two of the females and get them altered as well, but one was already pregnant. That is how we ended up with this bunch.”
A few are gray, one is black, a particularly friendly one is buff with big blue eyes, and there is even a little Siamese-mix in the mix. To socialize the kittens and prepare them for adoption, the Boodys brought them home for a period before delivering them to the Moore Humane Society, where they are currently available for adoption.
“Now we need to catch the bad boys,” said Jeff, alluding to the male cats in the colony.
The couple expressed appreciation to their friends and neighbors who have contributed donations of food and funding to help with their informal cat mission, but Linda said she really just wished the situation didn’t exist at all.
“People need to be educated about spaying and neutering,” she said, noting they have fostered thirteen kittens just in the past month. “No one else seems to care for them. We’re trying to give them a chance at life — a real life.”
Jeff agreed.
“Generation after generation living out here in West End, who knows how long these cats have been feral? They can’t fix themselves — or go open their own can of cat food.”
