Thanks for the encouraging words. Yes, these two do seem quite different from true feral cats. They really do seem sweet, but just afraid to let us touch them. They look a lot like the pictures of the American Shorthair cat. Little Babu is really tiny and I don't imagine she will get much bigger. She is from Girlfriend's first litter of three. Only 2 survived--black, shorthaired Little Babu and Fluffy, dead-on for a brown tabby Maine Coon, but really tiny underneath (hard to believe they came from the same litter!). The night Dispatcher was really making progress with Fluffy, hoping to take him home. He would even let her pet him and he had just begun to understand the pure joy of having his tummy rubbed--it wouldn't have been long before he was basking in the luxury of a nice safe, warm home. Sadly, he just didn't come back a couple of weeks ago. Coyote? Car? We're pretty sure he's dead. So, one kitten survives out of three and she's pregnant and so is her mom. The cycle continues, despite high mortality.

The news this morning is that Girlfriend was actually captured last night, but escaped during transfer to the bigger cage. I'm afraid she's just about to pop, though, and hope it's not too late to lure her again. Yesterday, as she basked in the sun on her side, you could see odd shaped bulges in her very round belly. Once she was startled and went about 30 feet and immediately was down again, panting and resting on her side. She seems very hungry and was still hanging around overnight, so maybe there's still hope. Little Babu has been captured (and reported to not be very happy about it) and I will go in later to check out the bigger cage someone brought in and see if we can't rig something up and put in the litter box. She may not be as far along as Girlfriend.

Tomorrow I'm going to call a local vet who I've heard has worked with feral rescues and see if he can give us any direction.