Just like it's incredible difficult to say goodbye to one of your own tame cats, it's never easy when it's time to say goodbye to one of our community cats. Community cats become just like our own pets - we see them weekly, they have names, they often come to greet us when they hear the sound of our cars pull up or the sound of the dry food being put out or the smell of the wet food being dished out. Harley was one of those cats.

Harley was a beautiful cat who was around 7 years old. He had a black coat with grey undertones which made him a unique looking cat. He was trapped and sterilized in 2013 and we cared for him ever since. Harley liked to keep to himself, but was usually around at feeding time waiting for his wet food and cat treats.

Recently, Harley's coat had become very matted and we had plans to trap him and get his matts shaved off in early May, but when the time came, Harley didn't seem to be his normal self. Typically, when Harley spotted an RCR volunteer he would run a safe distance away and sit and wait for you to leave before he went in the feeding station to eat. That recently changed when Harley started waiting closer and closer to the feeding location and letting out the odd meow. It seemed odd for Harley's behaviour to change. Initially, we thought this change could be Harley starting to trust us more, but as the days went on we would find him sitting on the ground close to his feeding station, he would look up and let out a couple meows. We knew then that he was trying to tell us something was off, so we tried for several days to trap him hoping to get him to a vet. There were days when he wasn't around and we'd search the block hoping to find him, and fearing the worst - that maybe he was already gone.

Finally, we made a plan to try catch Harley in our cat net as he was proving to be very trap savvy. We arrived in the early evening and the children from the block were out and said the black cat was at the feeding station, so we devised a plan to catch him and get him in the cat carrier. When we approached him he was sitting on the ground and he looked up at us and made a small meow and didn't move. We were able to easily pick him up and wrap him in a blanket and get him in the cat carrier - we knew it was not a good situation for Harley.

We got Harley to the vet as quickly as we could that night, but he passed away on the way to the clinic. We found a little bit of peace knowing that at least Harley was found and we weren't left wondering what had happened to him and if we'd ever get to see him again. We got to say goodbye to him and wish him a peaceful and a safe journey across the Rainbow Bridge. RIP Harley.