Do not feed the allegedly starving stray...

The Sweeper

This is kind of more a wail of frustration than anything else!

The property to our left has two cats. The one to our right used to have two cats. When the owners moved out, they took their cats with them and a new bunch of people moved in. A week after the newbies moved in, I found a little tabby outside our house, with a collar on her (I'm assuming she's a her because she's quite small... that and the lack of testicles).

She was very, very friendly. Then I didn't see her for two months, until yesterday morning, when one of my housemates announced there was a new cat outside. I recognised it as the little tabby - no collar now, and fur looking a bit scrappy like she hasn't seen a worm tablet for a while, but otherwise she was her miaowing butty little self again. Her weight is good.

I think she either belongs to the newbies, or more likely to someone another property down from the newbies. I imagine that when our old neighbours left with their two cats, her territory range increased and she was happy to come across their property and onto ours.

Unfortunately my housemate fed the little tabby twice yesterday. As I said before, the cat's not underweight. I cracked it at my housemate over this last night, and pointed out that if the tabby IS a stray she'll need to be tested for FeLV and FIV and FIP - I would be gutted if she gave any immunodeficiency viruses to our existing cats.

First thing this morning, and stray tabby is outside again. Looks like she spent the night sleeping on our deck. Housemate will take this as proof she's stray - I think it's proof she's a bright puss who's realised my housemate's a soft touch and will feed her twice a day!!

So now it's up to hubby and me to crate up tabby if she's still around our house when we get home. Then we need to drive up and down the roads to see if any of the neighbours own the tabby. Then I'll have to explain to them why I've fronted with their outdoor cat in a crate - "Hi, sorry, my housemate keeps feeding your cat so she's adopted us - can you keep her in for a few days so she gets the idea that she's yours, not ours?" If she's nobody's, then I have to take her to the vet to be tested and scanned for a chip and checked to see if she's neutered.

Oh, FRUSTRATING. (Not because I have to do the right thing by the cat - because I'm getting what I can only describe as a "stray false positive" because it's been fed!)

Daithi McGee

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

This is kind of more a wail of frustration than anything else!

The property to our left has two cats. The one to our right used to have two cats. When the owners moved out, they took their cats with them and a new bunch of people moved in. A week after the newbies moved in, I found a little tabby outside our house, with a collar on her (I'm assuming she's a her because she's quite small... that and the lack of testicles).

She was very, very friendly. Then I didn't see her for two months, until yesterday morning, when one of my housemates announced there was a new cat outside. I recognised it as the little tabby - no collar now, and fur looking a bit scrappy like she hasn't seen a worm tablet for a while, but otherwise she was her miaowing butty little self again. Her weight is good.

I think she either belongs to the newbies, or more likely to someone another property down from the newbies. I imagine that when our old neighbours left with their two cats, her territory range increased and she was happy to come across their property and onto ours.

Unfortunately my housemate fed the little tabby twice yesterday. As I said before, the cat's not underweight. I cracked it at my housemate over this last night, and pointed out that if the tabby IS a stray she'll need to be tested for FeLV and FIV and FIP - I would be gutted if she gave any immunodeficiency viruses to our existing cats.

First thing this morning, and stray tabby is outside again. Looks like she spent the night sleeping on our deck. Housemate will take this as proof she's stray - I think it's proof she's a bright puss who's realised my housemate's a soft touch and will feed her twice a day!!

So now it's up to hubby and me to crate up tabby if she's still around our house when we get home. Then we need to drive up and down the roads to see if any of the neighbours own the tabby. Then I'll have to explain to them why I've fronted with their outdoor cat in a crate - "Hi, sorry, my housemate keeps feeding your cat so she's adopted us - can you keep her in for a few days so she gets the idea that she's yours, not ours?" If she's nobody's, then I have to take her to the vet to be tested and scanned for a chip and checked to see if she's neutered.

Oh, FRUSTRATING. (Not because I have to do the right thing by the cat - because I'm getting what I can only describe as a "stray false positive" because it's been fed!)

You need the ...Hug. You will be grand. Remember why you did it and were there

MsFifers

LOL! I'm in a similar situation. The neighbours' kitten keeps coming into my place now to play with my cats toys and eat my cats food - the previous people who were here used to let it in, so I can't stop it now!:D It hides under the sofa and behind the cooker and is so BOLD!

It is really cute though, so I'm trying to resist the temptation to semi-adopt it (even though it has owners). I have enough problems settling in my cats to their new place - they have just started to settle but go a bit nuts at this little kitten.

I'm going to try to secure the garden this weekend and see if I can keep it out.

The Sweeper

Just an update: we decided last Thursday (25th) that we'd take Teddy the Tabby (as stray moggy is now known) to the vet on Friday morning. Got up Friday morning, she was nowhere to be seen.

Friday night she reappeared, we decided not to feed her Friday night, just to see would she still come back Saturday. We left water out for her. She buggered off after an hour on Friday when no food was forthcoming. Not there Saturday morning, then Saturday night, no sign of her but there was ANOTHER cat outside - a tabby with white socks. It was quite large, and I think it was a male because of the noises he was making - very deep 'rowwwr' sort of burbling miaow, but he legged it before I could get close to him.

This morning, Teddy the Tabby rocks up again, this time with a wound on her back leg. Enough's enough, so she's now in a large crate out on the deck until 4pm when I can take her to my local no-kill cat shelter. She's had a good feed and has water and a blanket. She's NOT happy in the crate, but she'll have to stay put. Our local vet is closed until tomorrow, and I'm just not driving her 40 minutes down to animal A&E who'll charge me $125 just to look at her ("Yes, that's a cat. What now?"). (They also get really crabby about what they describe as 'non-urgent' cases. Last time I was in there with a cat with snakebite on a Saturday, himself had to take the day off work on the Monday and drive back down to collect cat, because A&E decided she was no longer urgent. They didn't even want to wait for us to finish work, making a fuss instead about how cat was taking up space for more urgent cases. Bitten by a snake two days ago, just not quite sick enough for ya? Sheesh.)

I know my local shelter because it's where I got my cats and where the two kittens I'm taking in six weeks are currently bumbling about. They have the facility to check Teddy the Tabby for a microchip, accurately identify sex and age, quarantine her until her tests come back and generally look after her better than I can here. Have to wait until 4pm because the woman who runs it won't be back until then. As it stands, I reckon she's 10-12 months old, female, not-neutered, in season and possibly knocked up.

Mocking Burd

Not being funny or anything but I assume you have provided some toilet facilities in this 'crate' for her?? If not then this could be causing her more distress than being locked up.

The Sweeper

Updates and a response - first, it was a dog transport crate, so it's three times the size of the equivalent cat carrier, and there was a litter tray comprised of a 12" round flowerpot base filled with kitty litter. Not ideal, but I wasn 't bringing the cat into the house where my indoor cats are, and I had literally nowhere else to put the cat - which turns out to be a him!

My cat wrestling technique is nothing compared to that of the local cat shelter owner. She had him flipped and examined in the length of time it took for her to get him expertly from the crate to his quarantine cage - a large space with a lino floor that contains a bed, food and drink, a covered litter box and a cat tree. Hidden in the midst of that furry behind was a little set of testicles.

Teddy the Tabby is about 10 months old and he'll be seeing the vet tomorrow. He'll get an antibiotic shot to take care of some of his wounds, and he'll be wormed (because he's worm-ridden, you can tell by his fur). He'll have his blood tests at the vet too. Then assuming it's all good, it'll be a week to 10 days of feeding up before he's neutered and put into the general juvenile cat run for rehoming. He's friendly and very vocal, and I'd say he'll go quickly.

He's not coming back here (as was originally planned) because the shelter owner reckons that, as a cat that was neutered near adulthood, he may not get on very well with the existing remaining cat who'll be left when we move out - but conveniently my housemate has been persuaded to take the litter-mate of the two kittens we're taking in six weeks time, so all's well that ends well!

The Sweeper

OH the updates...

So it's 9th October today.

Teddy went from the shelter to the vet on 29th September. He proved negative for diseases, was desexed and microchipped.

Back from the vet, into one of the main cat pens at the shelter, ready to be fed up and rehomed to some happy cat-lover. On 1st October, Teddy the malcontent escaped from the main cat pen at the cat shelter. When I went to the shelter on 3rd October, they admitted to me that they'd lost him. The shelter is comprised of a number of large wire enclosures (including wire ceilings) with sleeping sheds so the cats can be indoor-outdoor as they choose. The sheds have a number of shelves with beds and boxes with heat pads and cat litters in them. There is also a separate outhouse that contains quarantine and kitten pens. The whole shelter sits on 40 acres of grassland, along with the shelter owner's house. The shelter manager deals with about 60 cats at a time, and I know she's well respected because the local wardens and pounds will hand animals off to her, as will the vet, if they get a cat that they believe has a good chance at being rehomed.

Usually cats are housed with other cats, unless they distinctly don't like other cats in which case they're penned separately, as are cats that need to be quarantined, and queens with kittens. Any particuarly ill cat is taken into the shelter owner's house, where she has other facilities set up for care and rehabilitation of cats.

The shelter owner and her assistant spent hours looking for Teddy when they realised he wasn't in the main pen he should have been in, but no joy. Couldn't even find a gap that they figured he could fit through to escape. It was a mystery.

Meanwhile, Teddy Houdini had made his way 12kms back up to my neighbour's property. He fronted first on Monday this week. He looked a lot better than the first time we caught him, but he's still stray, and we have no room for more cats, plus he's got a better chance of a good forever home from the shelter. So we coaxed him back into a crate with some food, and drove him back down the shelter this afternoon.

Back to the shelter I went, with Teddy the tabby in tow. He had a big feed, and a long drink.

Which is a good thing, because while being tranferred from cat crate to holding pen, teddy did a back flip and a twist and took off like a rocket out of the holding pen, past me and the shelter assistant, out of the quarantine shed and onto the property. He was last seen darting under the house of the shelter owner.

We searched for him for an hour, but this is rural australia and the shelter owner has a weatherboard single-story house on posts, so the underneath of her house is 3,500 square feet of one-foot-high crawlspace.

The hope is that he hangs out there for a day or so and can be tempted out from under the house with food - assuming he hasn't taken off across the paddocks, setting out for my neighbour's rear porch again, 12kms away!

Is Teddy destined to find a forever home? Why does he hate the shelter with its food and water and seem to prefer the wilderness and starvation?

Will we find Teddy again? I hope so, but stay tuned...



PS: No replies saying I don't sound like I'm taking this seriously enough. I'm gutted, but if I don't laugh about this I'll be out over 150 square kilometers with a torch and a pouch of whiskas for the next week.

lubie76

Poor old Teddy! Maybe he fancies himself as a bit of a wild cat and as such doesn't need us humans. (unless its for a bit of grub!)