r/Straycats • u/flaviuspt • 2d ago
Success! Two weeks old, eyes barely open, screaming in my garden in Poland. The cat distribution system does not take no for an answer.
I'm Portuguese, living in a village in Poland. Strays have always turned up in the garden and I've always fed them — but this one was different. She was about two weeks old and too small to run from anything.
Bottle every three hours, including through the night. A warm towel. A lot of patience and no idea what I was doing.
She made it. She's now in charge of the house, and the other cats who live outside have never let me touch them — they know me, they know what time I show up with food, and they bolt if I get within five metres. She's the only one who ever came close.
Her name is Tuga. It's short for "saudade" in a roundabout way — the Portuguese word for missing something you love.
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u/Just_Caterpillar_975 2d ago
Oh 🥺❤️🐈 look at the tiny munchkin Tuga was. Thank you for being a kind soul, OP. Giving her a chance in life and eventually adopting her. Obviously she is in charge of the house, the queen. 🥹🐈👑
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u/flaviuspt 2d ago
She was tiny — fit in one hand, with a meow far too big for the body it came out of.
I gave her milk and some food that first evening, but I left her where she was. I thought her mother would come back for her, and a kitten with its mother has far better odds than one raised by me. I went back out at first light the next morning to check.
Nobody had come. So I picked her up and brought her inside, and that was that.i'll be honest though, "kind soul" is generous. The milk I gave her that first night was cow's milk, because it was what was in the fridge. It worked out by pure luck — cats can't digest lactose, and it can kill a kitten that size through dehydration. I learned properly after that, and I think about it every time someone calls me kind.
Today the house and the garden are both hers. Queen is the right word.
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u/Just_Caterpillar_975 2d ago
You did something many people don't do. You didn't ignore her and when you saw she was alone even after waiting for the mama cat, you gave her a shelter, warmth, care and love 🥺🐈❤️ that matters more than you know, that's why I said "kind soul". And you are still learning how to take care of her and many people don't reach that level.
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u/flaviuspt 2d ago
Thank you — that's kind, and I'll take it. The learning hasn't stopped, though. Tuga was the easy part: a kitten in your hands tells you what it needs, and if you get it wrong you find out fast. The colony outside is harder, because I'll never get to touch any of them. Everything I do for them has to work from five metres away.
I spent an afternoon recently building them a shelter for the winter — straw inside, insulated walls, up on blocks so the damp can't climb in. I still have no idea whether they'll use it. I'll find out when the first hard frost comes.
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u/IndividualAnybody368 2d ago
You're such a beautiful human being 💕
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u/flaviuspt 2d ago
Thank you, that's very kind of you to say. ❤️
Tuga would want it on record that she did most of the work.
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u/yatadger 2d ago
Hats off to you, lived in Poland for years and I got acquainted with different orgs in Krakow.
The amount of cats they have to take care of is incomprehensible, and yet people opt for buying.
You certainly made it different 👏
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u/flaviuspt 2d ago
Thank you. And you've put your finger on the part I find hardest.The honest version of my situation: I feed them, but not one of the outdoor cats is neutered. Not for lack of wanting to — they won't let me near them, and a cat that bolts the moment you approach doesn't go into a carrier. So the colony grows, and I'm part of the reason it grows. Feeding without neutering isn't a solution, it's a slower version of the problem.
Tuga is spayed, vaccinated, the lot. The ones outside, nothing. I keep looking into TNR out here in the countryside and haven't found a way through it yet. So, hats off to the people in Kraków rather than to me. They're doing the part that actually fixes something.
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u/misfitgarden 2d ago
That is kind of you, thanks.
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u/flaviuspt 2d ago
Thanks — honestly they do more for me than I do for them. There's something about walking out at 7am in the snow and finding six of them already sitting there waiting.
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u/diddly-diddl 2d ago
What a lovely story ❤️ Her name is beautiful
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u/flaviuspt 2d ago
Thank you! I should come clean about the name though — "tuga" is Portuguese slang for a Portuguese person. So she's basically called "the Portuguese one", which is exactly what she is: a Polish village cat raised by a homesick Portuguese bloke.
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u/truly_beyond_belief Trusted Contributor 2d ago
You may have thought that you weren't ready for Tuga, but she obviously recognized that your household was in need of a monarch! Long may she reign.
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u/flaviuspt 2d ago
There was never a coronation. She annexed the place while we were still deciding whether we were ready, and by the time anyone thought to object she had already chosen her bed.The funny part is the court. There's a whole colony of street cats out in the garden who have never once let me touch them — they turn up for meals and leave again. She's the only one who ever came indoors, and she has never let us forget it.
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