I opened up the blinds and sitting there was this guy …
He has a collar & tag and looks well groomed. I’ve never seen him before. I think he wants to come in. 30 minutes later and he is still there.
Very odd. our backyard is fenced so he had to squeeze through or under our fence.
Possibly a worried family out there. This is your chance to shine!
We’ve returned a couple of lost pets to their owners. One in particular has stayed in touch since, about years ago.
Wonder if he got chased out of his own yard and climbed into yours for safety?
If he’s till there I hope you can catch him and get a number off his tag. His person is probably worried!
The tag did have a number. I texted them. Also sent over the picture.
He’s a friendly one, tolerated me getting a picture of the tag. Fairly mushy. If he is still here in 20 minutes I guess I’ll put out some water.
Hopefully his human gets back to me.
Awww.
He wants breakfast.
Let him in, keep him save for his people.
Human has replied. Apparently he is an indoor/outdoor that likes to visit. Lives about 2 blocks over but across a busy road.
It looks like Oliver has moved on. Hopefully he stays OK.
Absolutely not, I have 2 cats, one elderly. That could be very bad for our kitties.
Safe travels, Oliver.
(The idea of outdoor cats in a busy area just makes me cringe. I know cats can live good long lives that way, but so many don’t 
)
More likely over, I’d think. Cats can jump to the top of most fences, and if it’s wood, they might be able to climb it. Or, of course, climb a tree near it, or use anything leaning against the other side of the fence as a ladder. Cats have lots of ways of getting on top of things.
None of the cats who have lived with us would ever have tolerated being confined indoors. Cats also have lots of ways of getting out of things, and they used most of them. Of course, all of our cats started off as strays to begin with, so they already had at least some street-smarts.
Agreed. My cats go out occasionally, but under human supervision. Though a few times during this kitchen redo, Dot (our elderly cat) has wandered out to the front porch.
Ours started as strays also, but we fostered and then adopted them. Dot was only 4 weeks old when we started fostering her. She was bottle fed the first few weeks. So no street smarts. Sammy was a bit older and may have learned a little, but he is actually mostly afraid of the outside world. Those noises and big birds flying overhead and barky dogs on either side of us.
Dot was a “Foster to Adopt”. Sammy is our foster fail. Such a happy foster fail.
Sammy:
Backyard fence is probably easier to go under than over. Oliver appeared well fed.
There are gaps he easily could have got through at the 2 gates and at least 1 or 2 spots he probably could have squeezed under the back fence.
What a pretty kitty. I hope he’s smart enough to keep safe with all his neighborhood wandering.
Our current mama cat (the kittens are grown up by now but she’s still Mama) must have been an indoor/outdoor cat before we adopted her. She tries to bolt sometimes, and isn’t sufficiently afraid of the street IMHO, so we do our best to keep her in, or watch over her carefully if she does get out.
Her boys are indoor cats, since they grew up with us and we really don’t do “outdoor cat”.
I’ve lost 3 cats over the years to the road or just never-came-home. My heart can’t stand that, so indoor cats it is**. Well… with a twist since I have 10 cats (down from 12 recently) in a 1500 sq ft house:
In my small house I had to give the herd some more room, so I built them their own safe yard. It’s 120ft x 40ft, fenced with 7ft tall 1" mesh and a 1 ft overhang. A really dedicated escape artist could get out, but my crew seems happy to have room to gallop around, snooze under a bush, watch (and very occasionally catch) the squirrels and birds. It’s the best thing I ever did for them, and us.
**This house came with barn cats, and they are still there, 100% outdoors. I do worry about them but they were here years before I was, they are ear-tipped semi ferals, and they truly are outdoor cats. I still worry, but they know what they’re doing. I’d never take a kitten and turn it into an outdoor cat, but this is different.
Yeah, our last indoor/outdoor cat didn’t go out nearly as much as the others, and when she did, I don’t think she ever went beyond the yard or the driveway, but that was by her choice. The two before her would have regarded a fence with an overhang as a piece of playground equipment, and it would never even have occurred to them to think of it as any sort of obstacle.
The mesh is pretty wobbly, so I think that’s part of the deterrent. It’s hard for a casual climber to get a good foothold.
In the setup I had at my previous house a stray got in somehow, and I watched him get out. He basically went at it at mach3 and momentum won the day. It was a bit of a struggle getting past the overhang, but not much with the force he had going into it.
I would have taken him in, if he’d let me pick him up (with caution and with heavy gloves on) and immediately shut him up in a room away from the other cats.
I hope he gets home safely. – I suppose that now that you’ve got his phone number you could check.
We have way too many coyotes in our neighborhood. Cat parts are regular sights.
Our neighbor with two cats lets them wander, but they’re really good about staying close (and Hank is too scaredy to go very far). I’ve made friends with them through Max, but they’re not like dogs. I think Zisi liked Max more than us anyway.
A couple of days after we had to euthanize Max, our door was open for some reason, and Zisi came down the steps to our door. She just put two front paws across the threshhold, and we told her Max was gone. She went away, and she hasn’t visited since. She 'll still let me approach her and occasionally give her a little pet though.