what to do with a cat I had to trap

let me start by saying I like cats. I’ve had several, I have two now. the two I have now are indoor/ outdoor cats. they’ve been fixed, current on shots. they stay in my yard, come when I call them (unless sleeping really hard in the yard during a middays sun), aren’t aggressive, and are basically just little furry nice creatures.

recently, there’s been a feral cat that’s come around that will stroll into the yard, and do so just to fight (I don’t leave food or even water outside) it seems.

the first few times I only heard the chaos and wasn’t quite sure how it started, I just chased him out of the yard when I went outside.

yesterday though I witnessed it, and its a 100% this cat just being a dick.

so I set my small animal trap last night and caught him.

he’s 100% feral, wouldn’t be adoptable if he was taken by animal control, so he’d just be euthanized that way. he can’t stay round here, and I’d just as soon deal with him today as staying in the trap isn’t fair to him.

I’m probably more inclined to just take him and put a .22 round in his skull. I’m not opposed to dropping him off in the country, but I generally feel this isn’t a good thing to do.

so I’m curious what you folks have to say on the matter, and mainly how you feel you’d handle it.

I think the only alternative to killing is spay/neuter then release. That way at least it won’t reproduce, and hopefully it will become less aggressive. Ask your local animal control service, they may accept it and do this without any cost to you.

I’m not a cat person, but it seems to me that you may be wrong that the cat is not adoptable. And even if the cat has to be euthanized, the shelter probably has a more humane method than “putting a .22 round in his skull” (plus what if you miss and just injure the cat?). So take the cat to animal control alive.

Yep, animal control, or even a kind Vet might take it on. Worth a call.

I would not hesitate shooting it if he poses a threat to your cats, or yourself. Disease or injury. Cat bites can be nasty.

This is just my opinion. No one needs to do as I would.

a trapped cat will exhibit only a few different behaviors.

a domesticated cat will yowl, wanting help from any passerby, and be glad as hell when someone shows up.

feral cats, full grown ones, will stay quiet almost always. and when you approach the cage they normally cower in the corner and low growl, then hiss at you if you get fairly close. some are non fearful though and will growl aggressively and when you get closer actually strike out at the cage.

this cat is one of the latter. he’s not getting adopted out.

I’ve trapped over a hundred cats (used to work at a large apartment complex where cats were a problem if not kept in check) and I’ve only encountered a few of the over the top aggressive ones like this.

I’ve also had to kill several (one was hurt, two had cancer and had stopped eating, and a couple I’d trapped because they were nuisances). never, not once, did I miss, nor did they do anything but drop dead instantly.

I’m all about trap, neuter, and release, but there’s a two month waiting period, so that’s not happening either.

my girl cat put up a good fight apparently. the scrap went on for probably 45 seconds before I got out there and she wasn’t backing off. she had a wound on her hip area and a ear with a tear in it that’s bleeding, but that’s it.

it seems my boy cat, as tough as he’d like to think he was, is a big wussy. he was running his ass up a tree.

the feral is cut up and has wounds that are healing and some that have healed. from more than my cats for sure.

I do fear for my cats though.

it’s their yard, and I’ll protect them here by getting rid of the threat. had they as much as just ventured next door and then got into a fight I’d see it entirely differently. but the way it’s went down, nope.

Some shelters do adopt out ferals, as “barn cats” for people who don’t want a cuddly indoor kitty. My neighbors have gotten some that way.

I would just pay the $$ out of my own pocket for the ASAP neutering rather than wait two months, especially since you went ahead and caught the cat. IMO shooting/killing the wildlife is not cool unless it’s actually rabid or a dangerous man-eating grizzly bear or something, but it’s just a (psycho?) cat. Maybe a cat that aggressive would make a good ball-bearing mousetrap as others have suggested or be otherwise adoptable. In any case I would reach for the water hose before the .22; squirt him each time he comes in your yard and there is a decent chance after a few times he will give up and go somewhere else.

Give the cat to Animal Control alive.

You don’t know that he’s not adoptable. He’s scared. He might be different when he’s less scared. And neutered.

A .22 to the brain is a pretty humane end for a cat if you look up online where a cats brain sits in it’s skull. A cat I had for nearly 20 years met his end this way. I loved that cat and hated to do it but at his peak he was traumatized by car rides so at his frail, feeble end of life I just wasn’t going to subject him to that.

Cats are extremely destructive to birds and other small wildlife. A feral cat should never be released back into the wild. If it can’t be adopted (and kept inside) then I am afraid the best thing to do is to kill it. (People often just consider the life of the cat, completely ignoring the lives of the hundreds of other animals it may kill in a year.)

Shoot it, is what was suggested to us. No one could get near it, the shelters wanted $100 to neuter & return to our neighborhood ( oh fuck no), an animal control guy told us the kindest thing was shoot it

That’s not the situation the OP faces; cmore has the cat trapped, so it can be transported to a shelter.

As we did. Took it to a shelter. Or tried

I have known entirely non-feral cats who were afraid of strangers and who if trapped by a stranger would almost certainly have exhibited the behavior you’re describing as being only the behavior of ferals.

For that matter, I’ve had cats who were very affectionate to me but who, on their own ground, in their own house, not in a trap, would hide and stay quiet if a stranger showed up, and if approached anyway would cower and hiss and/or growl if they couldn’t get away.

This cat may indeed be feral, but its behavior toward a strange human proves nothing of the sort.

Take the cat to a shelter.

It seems to that everyone, including this cat, would be better off if he were dead.

Quite a few people in this thread, and almost certainly the cat, are saying otherwise.

Well, I’ll be dipped. Apparently my cat is feral, because he behaves exactly the way you describe whenever I stuff him into his carrier. I never would have guessed from the way he behaves outside his carrier; currently he’s curled up in the crook of my knee as I lie in bed. Oh well, learn something new every day. Lucky for him I don’t have a gun.

I’m curious how many cats you’ve trapped?

because, like I mentioned, and it was with no exaggeration, I’ve trapped over 100 of them. and there is no confusing the difference between a wild animal feline and a domesticated feline regarding their behavior when trapped. each has a range of behaviors, those behaviors do not overlap.

someone mentioned using this cat as a barn cat. perfectly good thing to try, I checked with a few people I know, and no one needed one currently.

this cat was a danger to mine and no doubt others cats. I wasn’t going to dump him somewhere and make him someone else’s problem. To me it’s more humane to bring the inevitable end more quickly than not. I fed him a good last meal of smoked turkey and canned tuna. we took a drive, he never saw it coming, it was over like that.