Beautiful Stray isn't a Stray!

the stray that I have gotten attached to isn't a stray after all. He belongs to a neighbor a few farms over.

oh well...

but thanks to everybody for sharing my excitement and helping me choose a name for him.

his name is already Cisco...

Oh boy That's kind of tough. I've been trying to figure out Baloo, since sometimes we see him and sometimes we don't. It really does look as though he's stray. Wouldn't it just be easier if everybody kept their cats indoors, so there was less confusion?

well, I guess I'd be a hypocrite if I agreed to keeping them all indoors. Mine live outside. Please know that they have heated beds and are not neglected.

the lady didn't want to purchase my spay/neuter voucher, but said I could have the cat vetted for her.

my husband was a little and said absolutely not!

so it's been a rough day for me.

glad to know you got some sleep and are able to work through Dozer's problem. (read your post)

I know you were real worried about that. I hope I was comforting to you in my reply to your post. I tried to be.

Forgive me for not remembering your specific post, but I will say that there were no posts that made me feel upset (barring cococat's first one, but I think I interpreted it wrong), and overall, what was said made me feel a good deal *better* about the situation as a whole, so thank you.

Perhaps I do have a double-standard though. I would allow my cats outside if we didn't live so close to the road. The road here is *absolutely* dangerous and I would hate to find one of them hit by a car. That would absolutely crush me

One thing that I've noticed is that the "strays" around here are unaltered and wear no collars, and yet appear to be owned by somebody. That is *really* irritating.

Since you let your cats out, do you have collars on them to make sure that they don't get picked up by somebody else? That would be my *biggest* worry, other than the road.

Please don't feel bad. MY cats roam, and they DO NOT wear collars. This is because the 2 new young ones are ferals, that have never worn and will not wear LOL collars. Goose simply gets his off in minutes of being outside. Can't tell you how many dollars i've wasted. Ditto Laphrogie. My other cats that disappeared were the same. One did wear, and I after 9 collars were lost, stopped trying to impose.

After losing the 2 cats, I decided that the next cats would be chipped.

maybe even an ear tatoo too... that way people know they are owned and cared for, even if no collar on. Goose simply won't wear one. Frogie, will, but then takes it off too. My oldster Diablo has the same collar he's worn since 1999!! Amazing. He has NEVER not worn a collar. Shebs used to wear, but no longer goes out and shows no interest, so no collar.

My advice - if you see a nice kitty coming round to eat - let it eat, but if it looks groomed and fed, and wants outside its probably someones cat.

Some cats are "visiting" cats they are social and like to visit other people's homes. (Diablo would do that when young...) If in doubt, take to vet and have scanned for a chip...

I never took in and kept inside a cat that strayed to me - I always gave them the option to roam, in case they belonged elsewhere. To my knowledge, I never "stole" or "took in" a cat that was owned elsewhere.

That said, don't feel bad at all. You were helping that cat, and he liked
to visit with you! And sometimes cats just leave their owners to findnew ones, because of dogs, new pets, new babies etc....

thanks for the encouragement. I don't feel so badly about it today, I guess I was just confused and frustrated yesterday.

I don't have collars on Cricket and Tigger. There used to be a beautiful white cat that lived next place over, and they had a breakaway on her but it didn't break and her neck was broken and they found her in a tree.

but tigger don't leave, he's 11 and Cricket doesn't leave cause she's just happy here.

I guess I got irritated cause the lady wanted me to vet the cat, and I know full well that if I do that, she'll put him in the house and just keep him. I guess someone wanting to take advantage of me made me sad and mad at the same time.

You know?

Well I hadn't even thought about chipping D'oh. Sorry about that!

I've had some really bad experiences with allowing my cats to roam without collars -- I've lost three that I believe were adopted by other families, and it was a really painful experience for me. I can imagine it would have been as bad for anybody else who was in the same situation.

I can certainly understand the frustration and discouragement you probably felt. He really is a beautiful cat, and to be honest, it's a great thing that he has a family who loves and looks after him.