We have been feeding a feral cat for over three years. In another thread recounting some very nice experiences awhile back, a number of dopers suggested I bring the cat indoors - at least during the winter.
I’m willing to try it. Might a feral cat…
panic, once the door to the outside closes? automatically use a sand box indoors for her toilette? tend to claw furniture, curtains, etc.? go on a rampage when my wife and I are asleep - crapping and peeing and clawing and yowling, and so on?
For those of you who don’t know…
We’ve fed her regularly for years and years, but when we’d put the food out for her, she’d jump off the deck and wait underneath til the sliding door rolled shut. Then she’d hop back up to dine. During the past summer, she got to trust us so much, that when we were seated in deck chairs or whatever, she’d jump up on our laps and couldn’t get enough patting from us.
I have become extremely fond of her and it kills me to see her out there, suffering in the cold.
So what measures should I take to make her stay comfortable and cozy?
Do you have a room that is fairly immune to messes and the like? For example, a warm dry garage or a “mud room”? You can keep all the cat stuff there, make sure she’s got food and water and a warm bed. Dunno if she’d take to a litter pan so installing a cat door might be a good idea (ten minutes with a jigsaw). That way she won’t feel trapped.
I don’t think I’d give a feral the run of my house, asking for all kinds of trouble.
You might also want to see about taking her to a vet - if you can get her into a carrier somehow, the “save a feral” program I know of used traps (something like the big ones you use for raccoons, you can get them at hardware stores). Get her checked out, vaccinated, etc.
We have a feral cat. The worse problem we have is capturing her to get her to the vet.
You will want to keep the cat isolated until it has been checked out by a vet, especially if you have other pets. Keeping her isolated in a room with a litter box, food and water also helps her adapt to home life. We’ve had no problems with her going to the bathroom any place else once she found the litter box. We have other cats and a dog, and have had no real problems. It’s kind of like having a ghost cat. I see her but I can’t touch her. My wife has had better luck in getting a few pets in.
Both my MIL and SIL have had no luck with their feral cats. They’re fine outside and from a distance (no touching, thankuverymuch), but would not come in. MIL leaves the garage door open slightly so the kitties can come in out of the cold. SIL put a heating pad in their little outside shelter so they’d stay warm.
Both of them tried for many years to get these kitties to come in. I wish you luck. I also agree with the other posters that you’d want to take a trip to the vet before exposing other animals to the vagrants.
We’ve never had a true feral cat. Just previously owned kitties who’ve been dumped (to our delight!) in the woods next to our house. All of them have been real sweethearts!!!
Thank you so much - al of you - for your helpful advice.
A trip to the vet would be at the top of the list should we bring the cat in.
And catching her for that trip will be no problem. My Kitty-Kitty is love starved. She is in heaven when she sits on our laps and insists that the petting be nonstop. At night if I put her in one of the bathrooms - with a litter box, food, water and a “bed” I hope she’ll be happy and sleep well.
All this depends on my wife, however. She is not keen about housing Kitty-Kitty.
Can’t blame her, but I hope she’ll agree to try it.
Wish us luck!! And thanks again.
I have had a feral cat living in my house for almost 4 years now.
She kept very much to herself until about 2 years ago, when she fell in love with one of my male cats. After that, she would hang around me but NO TOUCHING allowed! Then one day I was sitting on the couch and she walked up and sat in my lap. I didn’t move for an hour because I didn’t want to scare her. She flinched heavily if I tried to pet her so I just let her sit there.
Now she often gets on the bed with me, snuggles, greets me - but still I can almost never actually pet her. Once in a while I trick her into thinking it’s her “boyfriend” cat who is rubbing against her but when she sees it’s me, she runs off.
I have had absolutely zero problems with her as far as her behavior in the house. She took to using the litter box immediately; she does scratch things occasionally but no more than any other cat; and she has never had a bathroom accident anywhere. She is also unsprayed (but never goes outside) and she does go into heat, and there have been no problems with that either. She doesn’t attract any yowling males to the yard and she doesn’t gain some mad desire to get outside when she’s in heat. She has never bitten or scratched me (although has many times swatted me with claws sheathed) even when I “scare” her by trying to pet her. She has no food issues with the other cats and gets along with them just fine.
So it can work. I know many people with feral cats also and their experiences have usually been the same as mine.
It’s still a good idea to have her spayed. Besides the obvious prevention of heat and pregnancy, spaying means she’ll never run the risk of developing pyometra (an infected, abscessed uterus that can develop when a cat goes through years of heat without getting pregnant) and the risk of several cancers will be greatly lessened.
Oh, I know! If I could trap her I would do it. I have had 6 or 8 appointments but I cannot trap her no matter what I try. She must have gotten wise to it from being trapped twice when I first got her and her kittens, then when I moved. No amount of enticing treats inside will make her enter.
Now that she has “come around” a little bit, I am hoping I can just grab her and get her in a trap or carrier. It’s difficult having to have an appointment, though, and then having to keep canceling, so I am trying to work out something whereby I can get her whenever I can get her and then the vet can board her until they have a surgery opening.
Then she’s not “feral”- she’s a stray. But thus, the chance of her adapting happily is MUCH higher. I’d say 99.99% Yes, she will try and “get out”- don’t let her. She may cry at windows- that’s fine, don’t worry about it. Don’t get a cat door- bring her in and keep her in all the time.
Once she finds the litter box, she’ll use it, don’t worry. But she needs to find it, so putting her overnite in a bathroom will work. Then; de-flea her using one of those 'drop on the neck" solutions. Then; off to the Vet, maybe a couple weeks later.
WTF? That doesn’t work. There is always another cat ready to take the place of the old one. We’re not sure what happened to the old cat, but I think the local coyote is happy. The new cat is nicer, but I sort of liked the old one, the mean bastard.
But if a stray cat has survived three winters already, then it will be ok.
Very encouraging words, missbunny. Thank you very much.
My cat occasionally has a boyfriend in tow, and once in a great while wife and I have heard yowling under the deck. But Kitty-Kitty’s never gotten pregnant.
She has even allowed her giggolo du jour clean up the dish of food we put out for her, while she lies in the background elegantly cleaning herself and pretending not to notice me looking on disapprovingly.
She could be spayed and still be feral; lots of cities have organizations of volunteers who do Trap-Neuter-Return. Usually the left ear is tipped (cut off) to indicate that the cat has been neutered/spayed, so that if it’s trapped again it won’t be put under anesthesia only to find that the surgery is unnecessary. Or she may have been a pet who was lost or dumped but spayed before that happened.
It does sound like Barn Owl’s kitty might be a stray and not truly feral, based on her behavior around humans. This means it’s even more likely that she would take well to being brought indoors. I hope you have good luck with her!
By the way, a couple of days ago my feral allowed me to pet her face several times without her running away, and without her believing it was her boyfriend cat: she definitely positively knew it was me. It was a great step in Operation Kitty-Tame.
A vet won’t usually tip the ear of an owned pet cat. I suppose he might if you asked him too, but he’s going to want to know why you want the ear tipped if you own the cat. It is usually only done on unowned strays or ferals who are being TNR’d. You could explain that you’re trying to make her a pet but you can’t know for sure that it will “stick” and just want to make sure if she leaves you that it will be obvious she has been spayed.
If you plan to make her a pet and still let her outside, you could probably have the ear tipped in case she runs off and finds another yard to start hanging in. You might consider also having her wear a breakaway collar with ID and microchipping her. The chip would confirm that she’s spayed. Many (but not all) vets and feral clinics routinely scan for chips so if she’s ever caught again, they may realize that she doesn’t need to be spayed and thus won’t be put under anesthesia.
