Posted on 02/24/2013 4:55:22 PM PST by West Texas Chuck
She Who Must Be Obeyed sent me a couple of cat pix, thought y'all might enjoy.
Quite true. The orange cat had plenty of fleas.
“I did what I could.”
That’s it. That’s right. Just do what you can, and if it doesn’t work out, at least you gave it your all.
Good on ya WTC. We do the same out here in the sticks. Try to take care of GODs critters that we come in contact with.
Good luck.
God luck, then.
Had a big old tomcat show up in our back yard years ago. Not a feral cat, as he was friendly enough. I suspect someone moved away and just left him behind. I resisted giving him anything to eat, hoping he’d go away, but you could just see him getting skinnier by the day, so we finally broke down and started feeding him. Even though he was a big-old boy, he still managed to get the worst of a couple of cat fights, and after a few trips to the vet to get his wounds treated, we decided he needed to be fixed, so that was it. He belonged to us now. He was the only cat we’ve ever had that was allowed to go in and out of the house as he pleased. It turned out that he had scoliosis, and if he were left out at night in the cold weather, he’d be laid-up nearly criple for a week, so we always had to try and go out and find him before bedtime and bring him in if it was going to be cold outside. He really turned out to be a lovable old guy and was a lot of fun to have around. He really didn’t care too much for our other cats, but he did have a habit of greeting our little black female cat by licking her on the top of the head sometimes when he would come inside and she would start sniffing him.
We just trapped six feral cats in a row and had them fixed, got their shots, and rereleased them. About three of them stuck around and seem to be “ours” now although of course we can’t actually touch them. ;o)
The feral rescue place that helped us out with all this told us that after we took them home from their office, we should leave them in the trap (they just used the trap as a carrier, basically) and put them in a quiet, protected place overnight (like maybe your garage) with a loose cover over them. This was so that the anesthetic could leave their bodies completely, so they wouldn’t be woozy and at the mercy of a predator or car. So we did as they told us, dropped some dry food into the carrier (it always disappeared) and released them in the morning after a good night’s rest. (The cover over the cage was so they would chill out instead of freaking out all night.) Seemed to work well.
Had one funny incident: The scardiest cat of all (I started calling her Moby Dick, since we could NOT catch that cat for the longest time) did just fine with being fixed, etc. But the next morning when I released her, she STREAKED about 300 feet, up and over our 6’ back fence, and kept going! LOL! I thought she was headed for Mexico and we’d never see her again! But a couple of days later she turned up again, and still hangs around. They *know* where the food comes from.
Good luck with your little hobo friend!! Hope the vet can help him out.
My kitty and.I will be thinking of Hobo all day.
I hope he can live happily ever after with his new. Human.
feral cats have it rough.
Dangit! The trap didn’t set. Ol’ Hobo is pretty skinny and this is a big old honking trap like you’d use for a racoon, maybe he doesn’t weigh enough to set it off.
I’ll try adding some ballast and see what happens when he comes around for the evening feed.
I've only ever taken in one stray cat, but interestingly enough I didn't need a trap to do it. When we moved into our current home in 2009 there was a tortoiseshell cat living in our yard. For quite a while she would only give my wife or me a quick glance before streaking off, and she was just skin and bones unless she was pregnant. She had three litters of kittens in our back yard that I know of, and with the second one I started putting out a little food for her. After only two days of doing this, I would look out the window of the spare bedroom and find her sitting by the plate waiting to be fed. She would, of course, disappear when I came out to put food on the plate.
She slowly became less afraid of us, although not exactly friendly. I can remember a couple occasions where I was doing something in the back yard where she came up to within a few feet (still out of arm's reach, though) and sat and watched me. With litter number "three" (of the ones I knew of) I decided to get a little more serious about the feeding program. We didn't think we'd get mama cat socialized, but we figured we could socialize her kittens and find them homes. Boy, were we wrong!
Mama cat eventually became bold enough that if my wife left the front door open while our house cat was outside, she would sneak in and eat Apple's food. One day my wife came home from the supermarket and found her sleeping on our bed; apparently she had slipped in unnoticed and had been in the house the whole time. And by this time she had already gotten friendly enough to let us pet her.
When we finally took her in, she was pregnant yet again. She had her litter in the master bedroom closet and we had her spayed once the kittens were weaned. We kept one of the kittens and gave the other three to friends.
And here she is today. She isn't skin and bones anymore! Not to mention she's decided she's a lap kitty. We named her Patch.
Good luck, I hope your kitteh makes it to the vet and when you return he (or she) sticks around. I would put him in a second bathroom or an unused room or even the garage to at least let the little guy heal.
It’s sad to hear that he’s all beat up but I bet he makes a great kitteh once he’s checked out.
Keep us posted.
One downside is that the vet might scan him and he might have a chip which might or might not mean he has an owner. If he does, he sounds like a pretty crappy owner.
Are either of his ears chopped off at the tip which signifies that he’s been fixed?
Maybe Hobo is smarter than we think.
Yeah, got me wondering. I put some weight on the trigger and some more food in there and he went in and DIDN’T SET IT OFF AGAIN!!!
Little rascal, I’m gonna set it to a hair trigger and try again this evening.
Nope, only nips in his ears are from cat teef ;)
Yeah, they’ll scan him for a chip, Susan suggested that too.
I am curious to find out his approximate age, and I’m wondering about his limp. His right front leg has some issues.
Wonder if you got Hobo this evening? If not, you might be able to borrow a smaller live trap with an easier trigger, possibly from a feral cat organization, or your vet. (When we were on our kitty-trapping spree, we borrowed a large live trap from our neighbor, and it didn’t work nearly as well as our own medium-size live trap.)
When we lived in WA, a local feed store “sold” live traps, but would let you return them after use, minus five bucks for each day you kept it out. So they were essentially renting them for five bucks a day, and if you never brought it back they didn’t have to sweat it. Anyway, you might ask around to see if you can borrow or rent a smaller, “easier” live trap from someone. Best of luck!
Behold, Prisoner 00001X!
You can't see it in that shot but his right front paw is bleeding from a cut, sayeth Dr. Lisa. I knew he had a limp but it was not from broken bones but from an open wound. No idea how he got that, not from the trap. He comes home this evening sans testicular activity and with his paw cleaned up and all his shots. I'm going to keep him here in the Dawghouse (!?!) for a day or two to make sure the incision from his surgery doesn't open up. It will be interesting to see how he behaves inside, just the two of us out here.
Happy ending to the story, so far.
Nice to see you caught him and got him treated.
How bad was his foot?
Good job.
Awwwww!! Sweet photo!!! I’ve noticed that though: many animals really understand you’re trying to help them. :)
Have you considered keeping Hobo as an indoor cat? Back in the 90’s, we found a HUGE Manx tomcat cowering under our apartment building staircase, injured and unhappy. He was a big, rough-looking specimen, with a bullneck and crenellated ears — and a huge gash on his back (probably from a car). We took him to the vet, got him stitched up and took away his family jewels, and brought him home. We named him Samwise Gamgee, and he was the BEST cat ever. So incredibly affectionate and full of personality. He learned to use a litterbox right away and never made mistakes. It was like he said, “Finally! I get to be indoors!” He sat in the windows and looked outside but never, ever tried to get out or looked like he wanted to. He was a bright light in our household until he passed away eight years later.
Anyway, just a thought. Maybe Hobo would like to be an indoor kitty too!
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