What’s Your Preference?

candidrachel · #1 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 07:25 AM

There has been a really cute cat hanging about outside our house for the past few days. I've enquired around and no-one knows who she belongs too. Checked down at the vets and she's not been registered as missing.

What bothers me most of all is that she hasn't been fed! She "stole" some cooked chicken breast while cat burgling though our kitchen window on Friday evening and I caught her red pawed lol! Other than that nobody has been feeding her so I sent my daughter round the corner shop yesterday for some tins of catfood and this dear little cat has been eating like she hasn't been fed for a month.

I'd like to keep her. She's really sweet and I get the impression she comes from a family as she's used to children and likes being petted.

I've even put a notice up the corner shop so hopefully the owners will claim her (maybe).

Going to make an appointment with the vets to get her checked out - for fleas etc.

Am I doing the right thing? Should I be feeding her? What if she's been dumped?

DanielLane · #2 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 08:44 AM

you are doing the right thing. If I had a cat that got lost, I would hope someone would do for it as you are doing. Keep it. If an owner turns up, then all the better for that family. If they don't, then you have an awesome addition to your family. It's a win-win situation.

BigFuzzy · #3 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 08:46 AM

Keep it, love it..
but whatever you do, don't post 1000 photos of a damn cat here!

Sorry, don't really mean that, just practicing on being my grumpy self for when I come back next week and start posting again.

candidrachel · #4 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 09:38 AM

Thanks for the replies and I promise I won't innundate the site with kitty pics BigFuzzy

Got back from the vet and the lowdown is that legally we are not allowed to keep her for at least 3 weeks because as she has a collar she obviously has an owner somewhere and it might be the case that the owner has gone away on holiday and someone is just popping in to their house periodically to check on her and she's just out looking for company.

If no-one claims her then we can keep her. She was very good in the cat carrier and hardly made a sound. Our old cats used to hate travelling in it.

Forgot to mention that the vet scanned her for a microchip and no luck!

zona5101 · #5 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 10:57 AM

wait, i want pics!
How weird...a little tiny 6-8 week old kitty showed up in my garage yesterday... I am going through the same process but I am pretty confident somebody dumped her - she's too friendly to be a feral kitty. Good luck!

candidrachel · #6 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 11:03 AM

Bruce there are a few pics on my flickr and SYS. The vet just put me in touch with a woman in distress saying that our found cat matches her lost cat and came up to see if it is hers but alas it wasn't. Chloe was devistated and started crying because she's grown attached to the cat but was (I think) secretely pleased that it wasn't the right cat.

Biomech · #7 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 11:17 AM

Are you sure it was stealing the chicken? My cat, Steve, will eat stuff just because it's there and smells nice - she has a habit of catching butterflies in the garden and then bringing them into the house to play with them as the flap around on the floor :P If it's not chipped, tagged and comes back a lot, I guess you could keep it. Sounds like you've done it the right way though, when we had a cat that kept coming in my gf just tried to keep it :P Now we have our own though

She does have friends around in the day though :P There's "ugly cat" who comes in a lot and has eyes too close together. "Fluffy cat", who's really fluffy and greets me from my car. "Black cat", who we used to call "sooty" in the stealing phase, although I don't think it is because it's smaller :P But Steve is by far the best, cutest cat in the history of cats

My sister has Steve's brother. But he's all rough and has a cock 'n balls face.

G'Hopper · #8 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 11:19 AM

Yeah right! As if you or the other family really has a choice in who "owns" the cat!!

Let's face it, you have been adopted and have joined her cat family. Lucky you! Enjoy!!!

SwissJon · #9 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 11:39 AM

I went on holiday once for 2 weeks.. While I was away my neighbour was feeding my cat for me.. Well soon enough the cat stopped eating the food left out for it. When we got back, the cat was nowhere to be seen.. The cat was gone for a month, we asked around, nobody knew anything, my (then) 5 year old was really upset, cried himself to sleep for days.. We didn't think of going to the vet to report him missing.

Finally, when walking down the road, two streets away I spotted him.. He had a different collar on, but it was definitely him, he had the same wonky ear, so I followed him to see where he went, and he went into a house where someone gave him some milk.. (We'd stopped giving him milk because he was getting fat)

Anyway I approached the person and asked them why they'd put a new collar on our cat.. Turns out the story was similar to yours.. They thought he was lost, had fed him, and he kept coming back.. (Surprise surprise) And they'd given him a new collar because apparently he'd lost his old one and after a month of coming for food they figured he was a stray.

Cats are fickle creatures, they go to where the food and warmth and cuddles are.. The cat you found may well have a similar story, with a similar 5 year old crying themselves to sleep. Domestic cats rarely go ferrile and rarely go without food (I got mine to get rid of mice, it worked.. Unfortunately it got rid of the bird population too, even though we were feeding it!!) So unless you have an out of control cat population in your area, if I were you I'd stop feeding it, it'll be fine, it's possibly got another home with a child that's missing it.

If you do decide to keep it, be prepared to give it up if the real owner turns up on your door.. If you have it for 5 or 6 months without issue, do the world a favour and get it neutered or spayed.. An unneutered cat is capable of reproducing 5 times a year, with up to 6 kittens in a litter and can reproduce for its entire 14 year lifespan.. That's over 400 kittens from a single female cat.. Meaning that animal shelters have to KILL incredible numbers of kittens each year.. The website I got this information from was a Sacremento animal shelter, which claimed that in the Sacremento area alone, they had to put down 12,000 (Yes TWELVE THOUSAND) cats every year.

donnakin · #10 (**permalink**) 08-01-2011, 01:34 PM

I would keep it... I have adopted a few cats that way. Last one was a black male. Sweetest thing..He kept hanging around and i knew he had to be someones but no one claimed him at all. So i fed him and loved him.. Cats know when someone takes care of them and he found me, also found out that the one I kept was a inside cat that would even let you know when he had to go out. Thank goodness yours found you. Give it a home and it will love you forever. Good luck with it. Hope to see some pics of it too. Here is a picture of the last one that stayed at my house. His name is Thomas..