What to do with friendly feral cat
 

I just moved to CA, this temporary housing I am staying at has a few feral cats running around. For some odd reason, one sweet little cat shows up at night around my apartment and tends to stay close to me. I have noticed on several occasions he followed me around after I am done working on my car at night. Today he did the same thing except he hung around the front of my building. When I went back out, I noticed he bolted up the staircase to look for me. Since I am a germs freak and I couldn't touch him, I had to run back in my apartment and close the door. He actually tried to follow me in by pushing on the door. He sat there for at least 5 minutes. I think I accidentally scared it away when I tried to throw him some treats through my windows. Anyway are feral cats normally like this. I am just curious. I would love to give him a good home, unfortunately I can't provide it. If I have to, I would pay for him to be in a good home since he seems so sweet. Anyone know who I might be able to contact>

Local humane shelter or animal control would be able to deal with him. Even just call those places and ask. Animal control may not bother since he's not a threat to anyone, but they may be able to guide you in the right direction.

If nothing else, a shelter should be able to spay/neuter him/her to prevent even more unwanted vagrants.

Local area vets would be good places to call as well. They won't help you directly, but can guide you.

There's two feral (maybe just stray) cats that live under my house and the neighbors. We're up on pier and beam foundations, so there's really no way to prevent that. One of them was actually born under my house. That will wake you up in a hurry in the middle of the night when there's a cat giving birth under your bedroom. We're on somewhat good terms- I don't mess with them, they don't mess with me. The only problem is one of them got a major case of fleas, and likes to sleep on my patio furniture. My gf and I were getting eaten up by those little bastards.


The city told me my only option was to trap them and bring them to the humane society. If I was going to trap them, I'd take them to the vet myself and keep them as outside cats. I'm just unwilling to deal with a trap with a royally pissed off flea covered cat in it in my car. I've tried peeing all over the property to mark my territory (usually after copious quantities of alcohol) but they seem to be laughing at me. I'm out of ideas that don't involve an "accidental" spill of antifreeze.

Had a similar thing happen to me a couple years ago. My fiance and I already have 4 cats and a dog, all in door. A renting neighbor suddenly had to move as the owner foreclosed without notice and the renter left his cat behind. It stayed in the neighborhood wandering around. We noticed that it was very friendly and it even started joining us on walking the dog. No joke, we would walk the dog around the block and the cat would walk the entire way with us staying 2ft in front of the dog. If we stopped, she stopped. It was the cutest thing. Having already so many animals we couldn't take on yet another so we built it a shelter in the backyard and feed it daily as our own. When we finally bought our own house a year later we had to decide if we either brought it with us and risked exposing the cat to new unknown areas, said screw it and brought in the house with the rest, or found it a new home. We called around and finally found a Petsmart to take it as long as we paid to spay it before hand. So we took it to a local vet, paid 15 bucks to spay it, then took it to Petsmart for adoption.

The problem with animal shelters, humane society, Petsmart, etc is that they are all over run with animals needing homes. Trying to get an animal in is not easy and will take a lot of work on your end. You will have to make many calls, be aggressive in trying to get someone to take the cat, and in the end may even have to pay a few bucks to make it happen. It took me about 2 months before I finally convinced someone to take her. You have to plead the case and not just make it sound like your are trying to dump the animal. Lastly, you will have to touch animal. No one is going to come and get it. Borrow or buy a cat carrier as well as you will need it for transport.

:iagree:Humane shelters will at least be able to determine if the little guy is sick or healthy. If you're up for adopting the little guy once he gets cleaned up, you could make him the mascot for this forum :rolleyes: just sayin!

One of our Staff Sergeants from Iraq adopted 2 dogs that followed his squad while on patrol. He said although getting them cleaned up for adoption was a lengthy and constly process, it was worth it because the dogs were a part of the patrol/Iraq experience.

Just consider how you feel having the little guy around when you are putting in work on the Z. Although you're all "germ-a-phobe", consider how bringing the little guy into the Z family might just make you smile each day :tup:

Well, at least now I understand the Hartford Whalers Logo. My guess is you moved to CA from CT or at least the Northeast. We have a few feral cats that make our property their home. The only time they follow us around and are under our feet is when they're hungry. Yes....we do feed them. So to answer your question, if it's friendly, enjoy the company. But know that they won't go away once you feed them. If you enjoy having the cat around and it's a female, you may want to get it spayed. Many shelters will do it for no or minimal cost if they know it's feral.

remove free candy sticker from your car?

sorry Ken, that's black spray paint. :)

Ok, serious post:

Truly feral cats are wild, and not easily befriended. Your kitty was likely abandoned. If you get the kitty checked out at a local vet, and bring him/her inside..and the kitty STAYS inside, germs will not be a problem. Cats are a wonderful presence in the home. Consider it. :)

With respect to humane society-type organizations, the kitty will likely have ~72 hours or so to be adopted after it is deemed adoptable before it is put down. The shelters are simply too overcrowded.

You'd probably have pretty good success listing the kitty on Craig's list, as free to a good home.

Just my $.02 worth.

Agreed. It's abandoned, not feral. It won't have long to live once it's in a shelter.

The best pets are the ones that pick you, not the other way around. If nothing else, find a no-kill shelter and donate some $ for spaying. Better yet, open your heart and your door for your new best friend.

Got Heart?
 

Think about this: most ferals are either FIV or leukemia positive. Your duty is to catch them & take to your local vet period. Their fate is mostly determined immediately. Those lucky ones are gifts. Can you please find them a home w/ a mom willing to pet them on the belly when they roll over. Got heart or not?

My cat is a feral. She was taken away from mommy and put into a program called S.N.A.P.. The "spay and nueter action plan". It's designed to lessen the population of ferals. She had all of her shots and was "done" at the same time. She's been tatooed.

She's a very healthy athetic extremely good hunter. She's killed 123 mice, 1 rabbit, 12 snakes, 8 birds and 1 salamander in 30 months.

:iagree: we have a couple outdoor calicos. One friendly. One not so much. But we love them both :tup: