# What to do with a stray cat



## xShainax (Feb 11, 2012)

We have a stray cat in our yard and my parents don't want anything to do with him/her. What should I do? It's skinny so I know it hasn't had a good meal in months. Here are pics of him/her. He/she has a gimpy ear and it's adorable


----------



## RandyTheBettaFish (Jul 11, 2012)

Smuggle him some food. Try to get to know him. Maybe somehow you can find a home? If not give him to a shelter. Thats what I would do anyway.


----------



## xShainax (Feb 11, 2012)

I have been giving him/her food. He/her is timid but friendly when he/she warms up to you. I put up some fliers and hopefully someone realizes it's their cat.


----------



## RandyTheBettaFish (Jul 11, 2012)

Best of luck Pretty cat too.


----------



## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

GIVE IT TO ME!!!!! Since moving here without my cat I have been so cat sick to the point not having a cat is depressing. DAMN if we lived closer I would drive over and pick it up.


----------



## Romad (Jun 28, 2009)

Awwwww.... poor kitty  

He/she is a beauty. Do you have an update?


----------



## xShainax (Feb 11, 2012)

I have been feeding him every day but my parents still refuse to bring him to the vets or a shelter


----------



## tpocicat (Aug 8, 2011)

Some shelters pick up animals. You could try calling one and see if yours is one of those. You are doing the best thing you can for the cat. I'm sorry your parents won't cooperate with you.


----------



## xShainax (Feb 11, 2012)

He is a sweetheart so I know he must have had a home at one time


----------



## pittipuppylove (Feb 23, 2012)

Aw... Poor little guy! Not sure if its the same where you are, but in my area you can call Animal Care and Control, tell them you have a stray animal, and they'll come pick him up.


----------



## teeneythebetta (Apr 29, 2012)

The shelter will probably just kill him.
If he's shy, he has no chance at a home.

The best you could do is get him spayed/neutered. Try googling to find a feral/stray cat spay/neuter organization.
We did that for the ferals outside, they came and caught the cat, altered it for free, and released them back.


----------



## misty1477 (Jun 22, 2012)

Poor Sweet Kitty :-(

I have 7 kitties that stay indoors only .... good thing I have a ten-room house :lol: They are spoiled rotten ... just like my betta.

PLEASE try to find a NO-KILL shelter. What city/state do you live in? I will try to do some internet-searching for one for you.

I will try to help you ... PM me if you want to.


----------



## registereduser (Jul 30, 2010)

teeneythebetta said:


> The shelter will probably just kill him.
> If he's shy, he has no chance at a home.


Not necessarily that depends on the rescue group. She would have to go on Petfinder.com and find the groups nearest to her and call them one by one. Maybe one can help, maybe none will help. It's worth a try.

Lots of rescue groups don't have a facility, they work as a group fostering animals in their homes. Some will do TNR. Or at least lend you a trap so you can try and do it for yourself.


----------



## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

teeneythebetta said:


> The shelter will probably just kill him.
> If he's shy, he has no chance at a home.
> 
> The best you could do is get him spayed/neutered. Try googling to find a feral/stray cat spay/neuter organization.
> We did that for the ferals outside, they came and caught the cat, altered it for free, and released them back.


We did that too after our feral cats ended up having kittens. Our vets run a feral cat program and they fixed all the kittens and adopted them out to homes, they fixed the female and one of the vets thought she was so beautiful she just asked if she could take her home and is now a loved house cat, and the male Cheshire came back with us (is now a house cat though xD) and it works out just well. I really love the program too because if you don't want the cats at your house they find farmers who need barn cats and the farmers can pick up the feral cats who have been altered and give them a nicer home than living outside.


----------



## xShainax (Feb 11, 2012)

There is a no kill shelter about half an hour away from me but where they keep their cats are horrible


----------



## teeneythebetta (Apr 29, 2012)

xShainax said:


> There is a no kill shelter about half an hour away from me but where they keep their cats are horrible


What do you mean by horrible?
I'm just wondering because I volunteer at a no kill shelter and we have about 15 cats in each room, and they make huge messes in that one room pretty quickly, and if we haven't gotten to it and someone comes in, it's embRessing because it looks like we don't take care of the place, people just see stuff at the wrong time.


----------



## xShainax (Feb 11, 2012)

teeneythebetta said:


> What do you mean by horrible?
> I'm just wondering because I volunteer at a no kill shelter and we have about 15 cats in each room, and they make huge messes in that one room pretty quickly, and if we haven't gotten to it and someone comes in, it's embRessing because it looks like we don't take care of the place, people just see stuff at the wrong time.


They have a cat room which has about 30 cats and its dirty. Some cats have been there for 4 years or more and became feral from lack of human interaction


----------



## teeneythebetta (Apr 29, 2012)

xShainax said:


> They have a cat room which has about 30 cats and its dirty. Some cats have been there for 4 years or more and became feral from lack of human interaction


Of course, I have not been there nor have I seen the situation for myself, but think about it, 30 cats. 30 cats worth of litter boxes being used. 30 cats knocking over water bowls, 30 cats shedding, there's always a couple cats that throw up, or have a hair ball.
It's not going to be perfectly clean. Of course If it's like animal hoarder dirty, maybe they need to be reported to animal control or something, but it is difficult to keep free-run cat rooms clean. 
And I'm a little bit of a clean freak, I've gone home with my arms sore as all crap because I scrubbed the walls of every cat room in the building, all the shelves, it's exhausting it really is.


----------



## registereduser (Jul 30, 2010)

I'm not on the no-kill bandwagon. I wish I could be but I don't believe there are enough homes. Spay and neuter is the answer. I think stray pregnant cats should be spayed.  I'm not fully on the TNR bandwagon either. Unless someone is going to truly care for a colony for their entire existence, it's really not fair to the colony.

If you type your zip code into petfinder.com search you might see some rescue groups you never even knew existed.


----------



## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

Caring for a wild cat colony can be really cool, my friend is doing it at her house. They got all the adults and kittens fixed and it's almost 25-30 cats strong with BIG trays of cat food and clean water and then they all live in the old abandoned hay barn. There is also a massive cat colony local to me in a garden where some people care for them. The cats are pretty nice too but they won't let you pet them. If that cat is not feral though it needs to go to a real home.


----------



## ForbiddenSecrets (Aug 15, 2010)

I'd try to see if you know anyone willing to take the darling in. I'm personally very wary of shelters. The one closest to me has a 58% kill rate which is pretty dismal. One of the cats I own actually belonged to a friend of mine who's roommates gave it to the shelter claiming she was a stray. She was put immediately on death row and was deemed unadoptable because she was shy. I saved her demanding 'my cat back' and have had her for three years now. She's one of the sweetest cats I've ever met in my life. Honestly... unadoptable. 

If you keep feeding the stray the chances are he'll stick around if he starts feeling a bit better, hopefully long enough for you to figure out what to do.


----------



## teeneythebetta (Apr 29, 2012)

Oh yeah I have a cat who is very shy but not feral.
I do agree spay/neuter is the only answer to solving overpopulation unfortunayely there are always going to be irresponsible people who don't give a crap.


----------



## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

Not all shelters are bad, I worked at a no kill shelter and our adoption rates were alarming and we also had a very clean facility and great foster care program with very helpful volunteers. In fact we had the best system because our shelter was linked up with five others. If in 2 weeks an animal was not adopted at our shelter they moved to the next which got the animal more exposure over it's time in the shelter and got them out faster because if **** Rapids didn't have the people who wanted that cat maybe Fridley did.

Also our shelter didn't take in fish but a guy came into our shelter once with a betta he couldn't keep because he was evicted and wasn't able to keep the fish. We were baffled because our shelter does not keep fish so one of the girls just said "Okay we will take the fish." and we ended up just keeping the betta at the shelter on the front desk where he still lives in a 10 gallon. He's the mascot.


----------

