What Happened To Boo?
Three years ago today, on July 26, 2017, I posted a video titled “What Happened To Boo??? Feral Cat Missing Fur – Feeding Feral Cats”. It was the first video of what would become known as the “Boo Days” daily cat vlog.
A day or two before, Boo had showed up at my back door looking a mess. He was skinny and scared and all scraped up. I knew instinctively that he was coming to me for help. I had been filming and posting cat videos for a little over a year at that time. In May 2016, I started filming videos of Boo and Stella when they came around as hungry feral cats looking for food. A month later, once I found out about Stella’s kittens, I began filming more often and started posting some of the videos on YouTube to show family members who did not live near me what was going on in my yard. Little did I know that the videos would be so controversial.
Myths and Misinformation About Feral Cats
After posting several videos online, I quickly began to realize that many people believed incredibly wrong things about feral cats and there were lots of myths and misinformation being perpetuated online about them. Feral cats were being portrayed as vicious wild animals that people should be afraid of. People thought that feral cats would never interact with a human. There was a general belief that they were untamable and untrainable. Other people wanted to kill them, said they were all better off dead, shelters immediately euthanize them, etc. etc. etc. Some pretty horrific stuff really. It was because of all of this negativity towards feral cats that I knew that I had to film Boo’s entire journey from a scraped up feral cat to a happy house cat – to show people that the only difference between a feral cat and a house cat is their level of training and interactions with humans. I thought a daily cat vlog would be a good way to do that.
Bringing A Feral Cat Inside
After giving Stella and her boys a furever home inside of my house at the end of December 2016, my goal was to get Boo to join them. Boo and Stella were always best buddies when they lived outside. I never saw one of them without the other. They always came around my yard as a pair. It was that way until Stella had her kittens. Once she had her kittens, then I began to see Stella more often and sometimes see her and Boo separately. Sometimes I would peek under the fence to see where the kittens were and I would see Boo with them as if he was babysitting them while Stella was off eating food in my yard. When the kittens got bigger, Boo would join them for play time on my patio and for meals. All four of the cats ate together around a large party platter with a separate food compartment for each cat or kitten.
Boo was always part of the family with Stella and her kittens Splash and Simba. Unfortunately, he was also always more fearful. While I was able to pet Stella, Simba, and Splash, Boo would not let me near him. While Stella, Simba, and Splash all rubbed up against my legs, Boo would not come near me. As the kittens got bigger and they and Stella spent more and more time in my yard and on my patio, Boo came around less often. Therefore, the reason why Boo didn’t come inside when the other cats did was because not only was he not yet ready to come inside, he also wasn’t around.
Since Stella, Splash and Simba came inside at the beginning of winter, I knew that I would have to wait until the weather warmed up to try to make progress with Boo. It was way too cold and there was too much snow to spend hours a day outside trying to get a cat not to be afraid of me. That was the extent of my plan. I had a goal of bringing Boo inside to reunite him with his family but I didn’t know how I was going to do that and I didn’t know when I was going to do that. My intentions were only to live fully in the moment and seize any and every opportunity that I got to make progress with his training and socialization in the same way that I had done with Stella and her kittens. I had taken them on this journey so I knew I could take him on the same journey. The scientist in me knew that this experiment was repeatable.
Daily Cat Vlog
The scientist in me also knew that I would need to thoroughly document every step of this journey and process. Because the earlier videos about feral cats had been so controversial for so many people, I also knew that the best way for me to show, teach, and spread truth about feral cats would be to film the entire process of training and socializing a feral cat. That is exactly what I did. I filmed and posted videos every single day for an entire year and documented Boo’s entire journey from being a fearful feral cat living alone outside to being a happy and loving house cat reunited and reintegrated with his family. These videos are all available to watch on YouTube starting at Boo Day 1 and continuing until Boo Day 365.
After a full year of “Boo Day” videos, the daily vlog became “Boo Year 2” videos, again following his daily progress. Once Boo’s journey was complete, the blog then focused on his daily life with his family and it felt more appropriate for the vlog name to reflect that so the third year of videos became “Season 3”. It’s hard to believe but another year has now gone by and we are celebrating the end of “Season 3” and the third anniversary of the daily cat vlog on the Lucky Ferals YouTube channel!
Not only have the videos served their intended purpose of documenting Boo’s journey and spreading truth about feral cats, but they have also inspired other people to start their own YouTube channels, post their own cat videos, feed their cats healthier food, try feeding raw for the first time, treat cats with more kindness, and most importantly – rescue and adopt cats! They’ve even turned a few non-cat people into cat parents!
If you’re a new subscriber to the Lucky Ferals YouTube channel, are discovering the Lucky Ferals for the first time, or have missed part of any of the seasons, here is a link to the playlists for the first three years of the daily cat vlog to get you all caught up.
Boo Day Videos playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMzWJWkbHQbQ2Y9s5kZQ1VhaHvm_GV9Xx
Boo Year 2 playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMzWJWkbHQbSafGnRFVF6fsasOZdZ-vIB
Season 3 playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMzWJWkbHQbTodHQ2XakJzRlP0CWfLmDt
Many Thanks
Thank you to everyone who has been with us on this journey since Day 1. Thank you to all of our viewers and subscribers and patrons. Thank you to all of our friends and supporters. We hope you continue with us on this journey through Season 4.
If you would like to support his channel by becoming a Patron, visit our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/luckyferals
(Please note: Videos currently being posted are about 3 weeks behind and will continue to reflect Season 3 until caught up)
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