Neighborhood Cat Problems - Advice Appreciated

I will try to keep this short so it won't get complicated. If more details are needed, I will be happy to provide them. After reading the information below, my main question is this:

Since no one in the neighborhood knows who this stray cat belongs to, can we trap him and take him to the humane society? Or is it wrong to do that? He is RUINING our deck and porches and he is causing a lot of stress for our cat.

So here is the info. on the stray:

We have a cat that roams our neighborhood. I think it is a male. I don't think he belongs to anyone. We've lived in our home for about three years now and I've only seen him on occasion over the last three years. He is white with long fur and he always looks dirty and matted. I've even seen him running around in the winter (and our winters can be very bitter and cold).

Fast forward to several months ago in July... We had a cute little stray show up on our deck one night. We tried to find her owners for several weeks (flyers, ads, checking with shelters, etc.). No one claimed her, so we adopted her. She's always been very vocal and she meows quite a bit. We just got back from vacation earlier this week (her first stay at home while we were away, but she had excellent care by friends and family in our absence).

I think the male cat is afraid of us and he doesn't usually come around. (He came around a lot when we first adopted her and he sprayed our deck and porches - UGH!)

I think while we were away, he must have been lurking around. Our deck is covered with spray (UGH again!) and our cat is upset and meowing and keeping us awake. We haven't seen him though except for one night on the deck and he ran when I walked by the sliding glass door.

Our cat, KitKat, was yowling and meowing after we got back from vacation and I was so stressed out about whether or not she was okay. We got some new Feliway plug-ins and spray and she was back to her old self the last 2 days. Then... last night, the meowing started back up!

I think it's this male cat. Per our vet, she's been spayed (we had an appt. for her to be spayed when we adopted her and the vet shaved her fur for the operation and she already had a scar).

I've read that sometimes ovarian tissue can be left behind and a cat will still go into heat.

Is that true? I guess this got longer than I intended. Sorry. I'm trying to figure out what to do.

Since no one in the neighborhood knows this cat, he definitely should be trapped. I don't know about the humane society - so many of them euthanize cats if they're not "social" enough or whatever.

You can consider trapping the cat, having him neutered, and then releasing him back into the neighborhood. I don't know if anyone is feeding him or helping him survive - but neutering him should stop the spraying and territorial marking behavior after several weeks (takes a while for the hormones to clear the system).

You can also check out other organizations or shelters in your area, if the Humane Society doesn't provide a no-kill solution: http://www.pets911.com

No matter what happens, the kitty needs to be neutered! If there's a shelter that can socialize/resocialize kitty and find him a home - even better. But if that's not really an option, then as the neighborhood is his home, simply neutering him should take care of the problem you describe.

Laurie

Thanks! I actually know a co-worker who runs an organization to help feral cats, so I think I'll talk to her about it. Over the weekend I was thinking the same thing about the Humane Society and I don't want the cat to be euthanized. Thanks for your advice!

Good luck! Hope you find someone willing to take kitty and foster him so he can find a home. But if not, at least getting him neutered and then re-releasing him should go a long way to helping. If you can post an update, we'd love it!

Laurie