About “borrowing” neighbors’ friendly cats, and a diet tastier than song birds.
This has happened to me 3 times. One stayed permanently. One who was particularly shameless had his owner come and collect him and then start using a leash! The third happened just 3 days ago for a 24-hour period!
2 behind the cat’s ears would get all the cats in the neighborhood in line.
My niece and her hubs were living in an apartment complex while in school. They noticed an orange tabby hanging around ... VERY friendly and loving, obviously someone’s pet. They kept seeing him outside, just hanging around ... so they fed him. Eventually, he ended up in their apartment. At that point, they wanted to keep him and started asking around. All of the people in the complex they talked to felt that he was abandoned and had been on his own for a while - the complex was full of students and the consensus was that someone moved away, probably couldn’t take him along, and left him. He is the most mellow, affectionate cat & for the last couple of years, he’s been a great joy to my niece and especially her husband. He’s definitely an older cat and within the last two months is now having some significant health issues, but he’s getting the best care they can give him (vet & otherwise). He’ll be greatly missed when he’s no longer around - I’ve never seen a guy take to a cat like her husband has taken to this one. I’m not sure they’ll get another cat when he’s gone.
A well-written article.
We have two cats who came into our life that way — just showed up and we fed them. We were very rural and had only a few neighbors, none of whom admitted to owning them. So they’ve been ours for 10 years now. Maybe they belonged to people farther away than our small enclave. But at least they’re safer indoors with us than roaming among the coyotes and monster-sized raccoons that were everywhere.
Very few feral or wandering cats around this area. Way to many coyotes Bobcats and other cat eating predators. We have two rescue kitties that we adore .. they are total indoor cats.
*daily cat/kitten ARTICLE ping*
If you want on or off this list, please let me know.
If you want to adopt a cat, it’s very easy. Just set out some food and a local representative of the kitty union will contact you. This is how I wound up with two of my three; kitty #1 came from a shelter; kitty #2 was living in our backyard and eventually discovered we had food in the house (along with comfy places to lounge), and kitty #3 was born shortly after kitty #2 moved in.
We have a cat that has been hanging around our neighborhood for over a year. Very friendly, obviously used to people and not feral. We think it’s a neutered male (hard to tell if he doesn’t like being picked up). He / she / it looks like an older kitty. We and several others have posted his picture on the local neighborhood app with nobody admitting to owning him, but he seems quite healthy to be living rough, and isn’t infested with fleas. He’s sort of living in my garage now when the weather is cold, and I and several of the neighbors feed him. I am tempted to grab him and take him to the vet for a checkup, then let him in the house and adopt him - but can’t get over the nagging suspicion that he has a home he just doesn’t like much - besides, the little guy is sponging off so many houses he is eating like a king.