Well, not really. I just wanted to get some people in here to talk about the stray that has been hanging around my apartment.
There has been this 3/4 adult cat hanging around my apartment lately. I think he has adopted me. Anyway, he/she seems to have been staring at my front door a lot and after about a week or so I decided to feed it (tonight actually).
The poor thing was starving. I don’t really know what a normal cat is supposed to look like since my cat (indoor cat) looks like Mr. Bigglesworth from Austin Powers kind of except he has short wavy fur. So basically, my indoor cat looks like a crack head greyhound (same build as a greyhound actually) with attached bat ears.
Anyway, I feed this cat a little mini can of can food (my indoor cat hates canned food most of the time) and he/she devours it completely. I notice then that his hips are pretty prominent. I think that is a sign of starvation but I don’t know for sure. And after he eats that he comes up to me (he/she had been scoping me out for about 2 weeks) and cuddles up towards me. My heart was breaking. I have never had a stray actually choose me before and this one would likely make a really good pet. I fed him a little more dry cat food (not too much… He/She ate about 1/3 of what my cat normally eats, I don’t want him/her to get sick since he/she really looked undernourished) and pet him/her some more and finally came back inside.
If I can gain its trust enough I will cart him/her off to the vet to get fixed and have its shots done. I think it was abandoned. Since it is pretty tame as it is. I can see that it still has some outdoor cat in it since it is pretty jumpy overall. As of now though, I think I will just feed it daily until I can get it to go in the kitty carrier to get fixed.
Anyone out there have any hints on strays? I am not sure where to go and if I should try to make it into an indoor cat eventually (assuming it stays around).
Put the food in the kitty carrier - this cat needs a full vet check ASAP in case it has some infection which could jeopardise the health of your other feline.
Other than that, YAY for you for extending your love to this creature - talk to your vet about it. I’ve never seen a cat which has started off as an outdoor cat be wholely content to live indoors, but plenty of love, attention, toys and a playmate whould limit any pining your new kitty has for its old way of life.
I don’t know if I will be able to get the cat to eat if I put the cat food in a carrier. As it was, I left the original cat food in the can and he picked up the can and kept taking it and making sure he was fairly far away from me. At least until he/she was done and he came up to me and cuddled on me. I hope he doesn’t have worms or tapeworms. I will have to get him/her looked at but am not sure how to do it without getting it completely stressed out.
He’ll have worms. They’re practically born with 'em (and I remember some of why). Worms can be fixed. Well, it’s easier to kill them than fix them, and it’s probably a better use of your money to kill the worms and fix the cat.
I’ve had a couple of strays become pets, and usually the impulse to avoid starvation tends to overcome their natural suspicion pretty quickly. Try leaving the carrier around near the food, with the door open for a couple of feeds; if the carrier is something non-threatening in the feeding environment you can gradually put the food closer to the carrier each time until it’s actually in the carrier. Does kitty have access to water too?
If the kitty is cuddling up to you, it obviously regards you as fairly “safe” - I don’t think you’ll have to many problems getting it into the carrier fairly soon (you could put some bedding in the carrier, it might appreciate a cosy place to sleep, anyway and solve them problem of how you’re going to get it in there).
That’s an idea. I will have to dig the carrier out of the closet tonight or when I get home tomorrow. It is buried kinda far back and it is late. I just hope it will do ok for a few more days before I can get it to the vet. Now I will just have to find one. I doubt he would let me pick him up. I can only touch him with one hand at a time. If I touch him with both he gets real skittish and runs away.
The idea of taking the stray to the vet before exposing your current cat to it is a good one. The main concern is not worms, which are easily curable (most of the time) but FIV and FLV which are common in strays and quite fatal to them and your own cat. Please have the vet test and vaccinate for these before bringing him home.
Oh, and another thing. Stray cats can make quite good indoor cats, even if it might take a while. The cat I have now was found as a stray 17 years ago and has not been out since. She adjusted right away, finding regular meals to be more than fair compensation, and has been quite happy (and healthy) indoors.
A couple of thoughts, pal. If the cat’s truly feral, it wouldn’t (as) easily accept the association with a human that you describe. So, I suspect it was born amongst humans and later found itself an urchin.
That’s actually to the good, speaking as one who’s assisted in the adoption of a couple of truly feral felines.
Our single biggest feral feline project (speaking of EX and I) has been Buster. He’s now semi-acclimated to being fed by humans, but he resists actual physical contact (with a fury, I might add), But we have caught him and delivered him to the vet and he’s neutered and checked out and he’s OK. And now we figure he’s about 11 or 12 years old. Kitty life runs up to about 14 in general.
And he’s still pissed about it all.
The other thing is, do you want to accept this mantle? If you’re going to adopt this kitty, that’s a lifetime committment. For the life of the kitty, anyway.
My beloved Feral[sup]1[/sup] was a stray. Poor skinny, raggedy-eared (he’d been in a fight with something), scared thing he was when I got him, and I mean scared of everything.
Go forward six months, and he was sleek, healthy and affectionate to me, although still nervous around strangers; another six months down the track and he was even confident around door to door salesmen, coming forward for a scratch behind the ears. The only thing he never lost was his fear of dogs (next door’s chihuahua terrified him) and deep stress at moving home.
Strays, I’ve found, make incredibly loyal pets - they know who loves them, and they appreciate it.
Sqrl, if your new “pet” will accept a one-handed pat, it probably won’t take long until he’s sitting in your lap and purring.
Tip; try putting him in the carrier butt-first. That way he can’t see what’s coming and he won’t fight, it’ll be less stressful all round.
[sup]1[/sup]Naming him Feral was a joke. My current cat’s name is The Amazing Velcro Cat. I’ve never given a pet a normal name in my life and I’m not going to break my streak now.
Couple of things you might do to help this moggy, get a largish box preferably waterproof and line it with some old clothes, put in a few dry food bits and there is a good chance that if you do this for a few nights it will move in.
The other is to feed it when it hangs around but do this by throwing dry food bits toward it.
The cat will get used to you doing this and will likely move closer and closer.
It may take a few weeks but this seems to have worked on the feral cats that hang around where I work. We atch them and get them neutred, actually they have mostly been rehomed as they have become used to humans.
Help me? I don’t need any help…OW! Quit throwing food at me! I don’t want to get in that box!
DEFINITELY get this cat seen by a vet before you bring it into your home. You should probably wash your hands real good after you pet it, for now, until it gets a clean bill of health. Since you said that the cat comes up to you and cuddles with you, you might want to try putting the carrier just inside the door, and then when the cat sits with you, you can quickly reach in and grab the carrier, or open the door and put the cat in the carrier. It sounds like he may have been around people before since he’s not totally afraid of you, which is good. One of my cats that was a stray that had been abandoned turned out to be a total love muffin.
Good Luck, and bless you for opening you heart and home to this kitty!
After getting the vet check and all, if you bring Mr. Stray indoors, please be cautious about introducing the two cats to each other.
We adopted a wonderful stray male cat, about 3/4 of a year old (like yours). Very affectionate with people, took him to the vet, got him fixed, got him his shots, the whole nine yards. We named him Mr. Tufty because of his tufts on his ears. Great cat.
Until we tried to introduce him to our other two indoor cats.
He terrorized them, literally. They had not a moment’s peace while he was in the house (we tried to make him an indoor cat - probably our first mistake) and he drew blood from my female cat at least twice.
We ended up having to find him a new home.
Good luck and thanks for having a compassionate heart towards the homeless.
Sqrl: I have a lot of experience with bringing in ferals - of my own 4 cats, three were completely feral when I found them, and I have taken in, socialized, and then adopted out about 2 dozen more. Your kitty sounds like he might have been owned and then dumped or lost, although I have also brought in cats that I know for a fact were never owned and whose line had been totally feral for several generations and they were still fairly friendly right from the start.
The most important thing is DO NOT let this stray interact with your own cat until he tests negative for feline leukemia (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and gets a rabies shot. He should also have at least his first distemper (they are 2-3 to an initial series, depending on the cat’s age). This means you will need to keep them totally separate - no sniffing, no being in the same room even - for at least a week. (The vaccinations need time to take effect; your vet can elaborate on this.) Don’t assume that because this stray looks healthy that he doesn’t have either FeLV or FIV. You will also want to have him checked for ringworm - not a serious illness but highly contagious to both humans and other pets.
As others have said, you should definitely wash your hands thoroughly after touching him. FeLV and FIV are fragile viruses and can’t be transmitted to your own cat if you were to get the virus on you and then touch your cat, but there are other illnesses that are much more hardy and can be spread this way. Until he gets a clean bill of health, you might want to wear a smock while handling him, or pick one shirt and wear that and then change before touching your own cat.
Even if you can’t keep him, if you are able to temporarily house him for a few weeks, socialize him, and get him tested and vaccinated, his chances for adoption are increased tenfold. Many shelters will not take in strays whose histories are unknown - they have to decide who has the best chance and an untamed, possibly sick feral/stray is not going to make the cut.
Let us know what you decide. If you don’t mind posting what city you are in, I might know of some resources you can look into. Good luck!
My big baby boy, Sunny, was a stray. It’s amazing what lots of love, attention, and regular feeding can do. He’s now a 12 pound ball of mush that never stops purring. He hates other cats, but loves all humans.
Your stray probably does indeed have worms. Probably roundworms and tapeworms both. Sometimes you can tell by the condition of their coat whether or not they’re carrying a load of worms. Their coat will look rough and clumpy. The good news is that the worming medication is cheap and very effective. Sometimes it takes more than one course of the meds before the roundworms are eradicated if the infestation is severe. What we get is a two step treatment; a pill followed up in 10 days by a paste that you squirt down their throat with a syringe.
One other thing that I haven’t seen mentioned is ear mites. When Sunny came to us he had ear mites. They were so bad that he had injured himself with his claws when he was trying to scratch his ears. But there is a medication available for ear mites that is also cheap and effective. Again a two step treatment; a cleaner that you squirt into the ears and massage around and then clean the ear canal with cotton swabs. Once clean you put in a few drops of the medication and massage it around again.
Both the worming and ear mite treatments require lots of hands on treatment for the cat. If he’s skittish, that could be a problem. No matter what you do, if you decide that you’re going to adopt him, is going to cause the cat stress. Some cats harbor a respitory type virus that will become evident if they’re stressed, and they’ll look like they’ve caught a cold. Runny eyes and nose, lots of sneezing…but it should pass in a few days.
I’m a person that feels you should get as much as you possibly can over with in one fell swoop. A trip to the vet that includes the blood tests, shots, neutering, initial worming and ear mite treatments if necessary. The sooner he’s healthy and feels good, the better he’ll be able to love you back.
While you’re at it (taking in the stray to the Vet) use the oppertunity to go ahead and take yours in as well. (Not in the same carrier, for obvious reasons.) This way, just in case something did manage to get transmitted from the stray to yours, it can be caught and taken care of before it becomes too much of a problem. Also, if you are in the habit of taking your cat in for regular checkups, the two cats will be on the same check-up schedule.
(‘Owner’ of a former stray caught by the Humane Shelter in a live trap.)
Has your cat noticed the stray hanging around outside yet? You may be able to get at least some idea of how your cat will react to the new one, by seeing what happens when Mr. B. spots the stray through the window. If his reaction is ‘Kill the interloper!’ and he tries to claw through the window, I’d say that’s not a good sign of things to come.
Teddy the Wonder Cat was a stray. I have dog doors in my house. One night, I was woken up late by a horrible screaming cat fight. I rolled over and went back to sleep, assuming it was the other two cats in the house fighting. Nope. In the morning, I got up, walked downstairs, blearily turned on the light in the kitchen to find a huuuge beautiful Himalayan spread out on the kitchen counter. Teddy took one look at me and thought “Great! This house comes with a food dispenser!” and proceeded to demand food and affection.
I spend the first 4-5 weeks he hung out at my house chasing him away, throwing stuff at him, etc. etc. After that, I gave up. Every morning he’d be in the house, lounging and waiting for his breakfast. I couldn’t feed the other cats without him eating some.
After the first six months or so, I packed him up and took him to the vet. He had a clean bill of health.
I had no trouble with him getting along with the other cats or infecting them with any diseases. However, it was pretty apparant he was a well-loved stray. He wasn’t horribly matted, in fact, he looked like he’d had a hair cut about a month or so before he showed up at my house. He was healthy and well fed. Didn’t look like a stray at all, but all my efforts to find an owner didn’t turn up anything.
