Stray

There is a stray cat that has basically been around this building since it was a tiny baby. Last year she gave birth to a litter of kittens. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what happened to them. She is scared of me, but seems to adore my indoor cats. Here is the issue...

I am moving to another part of the area in a few weeks, and I would really like to take her with me.

I've previously attempted to catch her, and while she does run from me, she has no problems sauntering in my back door if I leave it open.

My plan is to catch her one of these times, and take her to the vet to get her fixed, and then bring her along on the move.

Is this a good thing to do?

I think trapping and neutering her is a fantastic idea. I would be worried about moving her though. She is clearly semi-feral at best and I am assuming that if she moves with you she'll remain an outdoor cat? I don't think it's fair to her to relocate her when her current location is all she's known. Moving her could just get her lost or worse if she tries to find her way back.

I think it's a great idea on the surface but agree with twstychik that if you don't plan on keeping her indoors she may be disoriented which could put her at a disadvantage.

Do you feed her regularly? If you do then she might already consider you her "home base".

I just recently dealt with making a stray/feral a pet. It took me 1 1/2 years to get him to let me pet him. Once I did, though, he became the biggest love bug around. I found using a string toy to play with him and a little catnip brought about a breakthrough for him to let me touch him.

Some issues to think about are: Is the cat FIV and feline leukemia negative? If not, it could present issues for your other cat. When I finally got my stray/feral to the vet, they outright told me that if he was positive for FIV or feline leukemia they would expect me to keep him indoors all the time so he didn't continue to put other cats at risk. Thankfully he was negative for both.

Best of luck to you and I hope that if you do decide to bring the cat with you it will go smoothly and that she'll transition nicely.