TL;DR, voted the cat thing at the end.
Annie gets a deadline before I take Mr. Kitty to the shelter. That deadline is 48 hours. Why? Partly because I’m a bastard, but mostly – well, actually bastard covers it.
Yep. As crab-tastic Mr. Kitty is, this is now his home - you created the problem by allowing flaky Annie to treat your space as a flop house for she and her cat.
Do you best, maintain the cat and tell Annie to pound salt.
When the cat starts his inevitable decline, take him to the vet and be done with it.
This would be my answer, too if the cat had become part of the family. However, I took the OP to mean that Mr. Kitty has to be sequestered from the other pets and small children in the house. That’s what made the difference for me.
gwendee - I had an airedale that wasn’t good with cats (d’uh on my part - but I really thought I could cure it). For several years, I kept the cats out of my room while she was in it, then would crate her before I went to bed adn let the cats in. It was a headache, but it became routine and we all lived with the compromise. I’ve never “rehomed” an animal, it’s a 'til death to we part thing.
StG
Buy a cheap carrier, get your locks changed, and tell Annie she has until x date (to be determined by how generous you’re feeling - between two days and two months) to find a home for her cat.
If the cat is not rehomed by Annie by x date, then the cat ends up on Annie’s doorstep in the carrier, with all of his catly belongings in a box beside him.
Also, stop inviting/letting Annie come over and watch TV while ignoring her cat.
Given this, I’m guessing that
Leave it up to Annie: she’ll find something, or Mr. Kitty will croak. Whatever.
and
Adopt Mr. Kitty yourself, and try to keep him from maiming the other small creatures in the house.
are the only two real possible answers to the poll. The others are just window dressing.
I’d go with dropping off the cat. It’s not your problem. She can hide it, euthanize it, move, whatever.
Annie doesn’t care about the cat any more. The cat is isolated and although his basic needs are met, he’s probably not happy. He doesn’t want to be there and no one particularly wants him there either. Tossing him out or dropping him off at a shelter (no-kill or not) would be cruel. He’s old and not very social. Sitting in a cage for the rest of his life isn’t a life at all.
Take him to the vet and have him put down. It would be the kindest thing to do for all involved.
This is an old cat.
However, even a young non-feral cat is not going to have an easy time adjusting to be a feral. And even cats who are born feral do not have easy lives. It’s not just a question of food, either. Feral cats are caught and tormented by humans. They get injured or sick, and spend days, weeks, or months in pain before they die of their wounds/illness. A quick clean death is much kinder. It’s harder on the human, because the human can’t tell him/herself a nice little story about how the cat is living free now, but it’s easier on the cat.
Having said that…I don’t know what I’d do, really. I almost certainly wouldn’t be in this position, because I don’t let people couch surf. My husband’s brother wanted to move in with us a few months ago, and I refused to allow it, partly because I was sure that he’d be living with us for the rest of our lives, and partly because I’ve caught him being mean to my cats. I’d be reluctant to let anyone move in with us, actually, at least partially because I’ve heard a few too many horror stories of people who move in and never move out again, or only move out after legal measures have been taken.
Years, eh? Do you have any boundaries at all? We can bemoan Annie’s lack of motivation to stop imposing on you for so long, but you’re really to blame for not laying down firm boundaries and sticking to them. Why would she change if you never make her?
Step 1: Get some boundaries (therapy helps).
Step 2: Call her and explain the boundary.
Step 3: Enforce the boundary.
It’s really that simple.
Buy the haunted house from the other thread.
Seriously, I’m with StGermain. Mr Kitty is now MY cat.
I might tolerate Annie’s behavior if she were my actual CHILD. But she’s a hustler, and you need to change the locks.
~VOW
Unless one of your children will be traumatized by a moderately healthy cat being put down, take it to a vet and do the right thing (said child must now assume feeding/cleaning/socializing the cat duties). It’s not Annie’s cat anymore, she abandoned it as surely as if she’d left it on someone’s farm in the middle of the night.
Take her for a drive into the woods and leave her there.
Annie, not the cat.
I love cats (except for the 10 that seem to think my fenced in yard is a toilet).
Option 1. Bye Mr Kitty.
I voted for Adopt Mr. Kitty yourself, and try to keep him from maiming the other small creatures in the house because that’s what* I* would do. In a similar situation I did keep a kitten, but then he was quite a nice little thing. What you should do is up to you of course.
I’d give her a very short deadline and then take the cat to whatever shelter can take him. If it’s a no-kill, ok – if not, time for Mr. Kitty to go be with Jesus.
I’d also ditch Annie.
I don’t understand why you’re still pretending this is Annie’s cat.
You need to do two things:
First-admit that you have a cat that you don’t want.
Second-figure out what solution to the first problem feels right for you and your family.
Easy peasy.
ETA: If you’re actually posting for permission to put the cat down, here it is. God will still love you, karma isn’t real, and your kids will get over it.
Thanks for all the responses, although I don’t know why everyone is answering as though this is a real problem for me - I’m just asking what you would do in this wacky, totally fabricated, hypothetical scenario.
Don’t fight the hypoth-
…ah, no one’s buying it. Anyway, I have to say, while I expected most people would say ditch the cat, I am surprised that the vast majority would opt for a shelter that euthanizes over a no-kill shelter. I thought I’d see a lot more people echoing Quasi. I’m also surprised that no one voted to lie to Annie and tell her Mr. Kitty went to a no-kill shelter, or say, a farm in the country where he can chase mice and drink catnip margaritas. Not that I’d do it, but I figured at least a couple people would want to spare her feelings. Or maybe everyone realized that this lie would fall apart too easily.
Correct. Mr. Kitty is not a people-person. He likes Annie, and seems to generally tolerate the presence of other people, as long as they give him wide berth. But in the entire time he’s lived with us, he’s essentially seen no one but Annie. When I’ve had reason to go into that part of the house, he usually hides from me. The pet-and-kid contingent is not aware of his existence at all, and vice versa. It’s not really like having a pet; it’s more like having a raccoon living in the attic.
And see, that sounds totally doable to me. I’ve had similar situations where pets didn’t get along, and they got the run of the house in shifts. But it wouldn’t work with Mr. Kitty. Up until this point, I’ve only interacted with him a handful of times. He’s allowed me to pet him once or twice when Annie was away and I had to feed him. And I tried to pick him up once. Once. So he’d have to remain in solitary, and at best, I’d be able to spend an hour a day with him, which is less attention than he’s getting from Annie now, and with someone he considers a stranger. Socializing him enough to be comfortable with me, let alone become part of the family, would be a long, arduous, and probably fruitless endeavor. I have neither the time nor the inclination. Well… I have a *little *of the inclination, but seriously, no time.
Well spotted. In fact, they’re the only two options that are absolutely not happening, but only because I have indeed just left things up to Annie and/or made her problems my own for far too long.
I’m happy to serve as yet another horror story, if it will keep anyone else from making the same mistake.
Well… it is and it isn’t. The larger Annie situation is far more complex than I presented here - I chose not to go into it because it’s not really relevant to Mr. Kitty’s plight - but even considering all the extenuating circumstances, I can’t deny that I’ve allowed Annie to take advantage of me. Believe me, though: if she were actually just some freeloading friend, she’d have been kicked to the curb long, long ago. Or, perhaps…
But that would be wrong. (It would be wrong, wouldn’t it?)
In any case, I’ve made my decision. I found a shelter that’s not no-kill, but they will keep animals indefinitely, as long as they have the space and the animal is healthy. So I’m counting that as close enough for government work, and voting “Wait until you find a no-kill shelter, give Annie a deadline, then take him there.” I’m not sure yet how long I’ll give her; probably a couple of weeks because I’m such a sap. But as soon as Mr. Kitty is out the door, we will be changing the locks.
Excellent.
I think a lot of people might not have gone for the no-kill shelter option because you already mentioned trouble finding one with space, and frankly, just about all no-kill shelters are full up or very short on space.