The black stray that ended up adopting both myself and my downstairs neighbor died two weeks ago of a urinary infection (very friendly and tame). She had a paramour of sorts (even tho she was neutered a few years back), also black who hangs around here too, but he’s pretty wild-always runs away when I see him. I did manage to “talk” to him in soothing tones the other day (me on the sidewalk, him behind a bush 20 feet away), and he didn’t scat off immediately like he usually does. There’s a big grey tabby whom I surrepetitiously noticed playing dominance games with him the other day (the whole wailing and caterwauling routine), and I’ve also heard him crying out there a lot the last few days (looking for his missing lady friend perhaps). I fear he’ll have a short unhappy life if he stays wild.
Trapping him may be the only reasonable recourse if I can’t sweet talk him and bribe him with food, and I may not be living in this apt. too much longer. Any ideas from you cat lovers?
Feral cat != stray cat. The former will be basically impossible to befriend; they fear humans due to lack of contact, and will never let you get close no matter how much you try, unless they are kittens. Stray cats, which yours sounds like, are easier to manage. Food and a lot of patience can do it. You should probably check if your area has a catch and neuter program. It will at least help the guy get some aggression out, and lower the possibility of a new generation of semi-wild cats.
I tend to several ferals (making sure they have food, water and a warm place to go when needed) and have worked long and hard trying to tame a few. The closest I have gotten with a full grown feral cat is to get them to trust me and no one else, enough to not scatter when I walk up to them. That’s about it though.
I have two or three feral cats right now that I can sit out on my porch with, if they are already there when I come out (they won’t come up to me if I am out there first). I can talk to them and coo at them, and maybe (if I am lucky) get them to take a piece of cheese from my hand, but under no circumstances could I pet them or lure them into the house or even think about picking them up.
A few I have trapped, neutered (well I didn’t neuter them, but had it done) and released them back, but even having them trapped there was no way I would ever be able to turn them into pets.
Ferals are pretty wild, and will usually remain so. The only time I would attempt taming one with any hope of success would be if the cat were a very young kitten.
For your boy I would recommend making sure he has food, water and maybe some sort of shelter for when he needs it (a cat bed/box made out of a Rubber Maid container is well loved by my ferals) and hope for the best.
I was able to tame a feral cat when I was 12. It was on my parent’s farm. For months he would wander around one of our barns. I began leaving food for him. For several days, he wouldn’t even touch the food left, but he eventually began eating from the bowl left out for him. This went on for several weeks, and he became adjusted to eating from the food I left for him.
I then changed it up and would leave the food out when I was nearby several feet away sitting there. When I would leave, I would take the bowl with me. After a few days he would venture to the bowl and eat from it with me about 10 feet away. Every day I gradually moved myself closer and closer.
Eventually after he would eat, with me a few feet away, I would hold out the back of my hand which he would sniff and eventually head butt, rubbing his scent glands on me. After about a week of this he would let me pet him.
It took almost two months, but he eventually became an inside/outside cat, as tame as any of our other cats.
That is pretty amazing (and proves that it can be done sometimes) but I wonder if your feral truly was feral, or feral-born. I have had similar experiences with what I thought were feral cats (and the last one enjoyed the rest of his life as an indoor-only cat) only to find out later that they were strays (or abandoned in the case of my late kitty) that had reverted to feral ways.
If your cat was born to a stray mother (as opposed to a feral mother) or had some (any) contact with people as a young 'un then what you did was not impossible (duh) but still exceedingly cool.
It is always, IMO, a good idea to make sure they are fed, and in the course of tending them if they become friendly then that’s okay too, but I believe your experience is definitely not the norm nor should it be expected when dealing with a truly feral cat.
I’ve manged to tame eight or nine of them, it isn’t as hard as some suggest.
Feral cats are very food motivated, it’s a case of being patient. Cats are also very routine oreinted, so you do the same thing every day, such as feed at the same time. Feral cats will adopt their daily routune to patrol just as you put the food out.
Hardest part is to ge them to eat whilst you are present, after that it’s all about persistance.
I am working on one right now, its taken me a full year to be able to stroke him and get the sort of response you’d expect from a tame cat.
You’ll find that if a cat has other food sources then it will be harder, but inevitably other food sources dry up and they have to find others, but if you are doing the feeding they begin to understand that you are reliable.
If I really chose, I could catch the current cat, but I already have four others and there would be some territorial issues - I’ll maintain him for now unless he needs vet care in which case I’ll have no choice but catch him. In time I’ll be able to pick him up without any objection, and that’s when I’ll take him home.
Food motivation usually works. For adults, you can make some of them into house cats that are able to live non-destructively in that environment. I’ve seen others that repeatedly mark, scratch and destroy everything in sight and are generally not happy being house cats.
In my experience, a cat will be tamed if it wants to be, and it’ll vary from cat to cat which ones want to be. You can try the feeding routine and it might work out, or it might not.
Years ago there was a BBC programme where they closely followed the lives of some feral cats for a year for a study. The cats were carefully chosen from a shelter as ones which were genuinely feral but accustomed to being around humans – so they would be amenable to observation – and were installed on a farm. Anyhow one of the kittens born on the farm just upped and went to live with an old lady in the village when she was about a year old.
So, yeah, tamed if they want to be but some degree of familiarity with humans is neccessary.
The urban hospital I worked at had feral cats that fed off the kindness of nurses and housekeepers. They tried to trap and neuter them and were somewhat successful. A kitten was trapped once and I adopted her. (She was so dirty when I got her I didn’t know she was a calico until I bathed her!) My vet estimated her age at 8 weeks when I got her. Scarfie is integrated with our three other cats and two Shelties, and is now almost three years old. My cali girl rarely purrs and only meows when very pissed off. She bit a lot when I first got her and to this day she still “bite plays” with me. Her “territory” is our bedroom and she loves sleeping with us…lets my wife play and pet her, but otherwise prefers the company of the other cats.
