Another New Cat!!

Hi!  My name is Cathy and I love animals!  I feed the birds , the deer and 3 feral cats out on my deck.  I'm retired so I can spend more time with all my critters.  I was looking for a site like this because one of my feral cats had a degloved tail, (the hair and skin was missing on about 4 inches of his tail).  My Vet was totally generous....he repaired the tail and neutered Tiger (thats what I call him) for no charge.  (I baked him a cake and wrote thank you on it!).  Tiger now lives in my spare bedroom while I try to socialize him. It's been about 3 weeks since I live trapped him.  He's about 3 years old so it might be impossible to socialize him but I'm going to give it a try.

I also share my life with another female cat named Miesha. She's my precious, little, independant girl that loves to snuggle with me when she wants to!!  But thats OK, I'll take what I can get!  I adopted her from a shelter about 3 months ago. She's also about 3 years old.

I'm hoping to get lots of advice on how to socialize Tiger.  He spits and slaps at me a lot but I'm trying to be patient. I cat proofed the spare bedroom after Tiger showed me what worked and what didn't if you know what I mean?!!! .  I share treats with him on a long handled spoon like tuna or cooked hamburger once a day.  He does eat it after he spits and slaps at the spoon a coupleof times! I've read to him, sat in there while on my computer, I'm doing everything I can think of to show him I can give him a better life than running around out in that cold,cruel world!  I even today ordered one of those feli-way electric diffusers somebody told me about.  I sure hope they ship it fast!!!  I need all the help I can get!  Anyway, I would love to make some new friends and maybe learn some helpful things about cats.  A big hello to everyone!!



This is my beautiful Miesha.



This is Tiger taken through the sliding glass door. He's eating on the picnic table.



This is baby girl. I'm going to trap her next and get her spayed.  (I'm guessing she's a girl, she's a lot smaller than Tiger.)



This one I don't see as often, so I don't know if she (I'm guessing again)  belongs to anyone but I call her Momma Kitty. She's been around the longest.

Like I said before, hoping to make some friends!  Bye for now!

Thank you for taking care of these homeless babies. 

Socializing a feral can be very rewarding.  IF they were actually once owned and then abandoned, you may find a day when they suddenly decide they love you and love being inside and love attention.  It can change for no apparent reason and at any time.  If they are truly feral, they may never be what you'd call domestic.

Welcome to the site! 

Good luck with his introduction into your home.  I'm sure he will come around.   Meisha is gorgeous! 

Well, my dear, it sounds like you have your hands full.  But it's so good to hear that you care enough to give it a try and the cats are going to share their lives with you.  As they say in Australia "Good on ya"  No, I'm not from Australia, I just like the expression.

       I would like to give you one little piece of advice, though, if you don't mind.  It's not a good idea to feed Tiger tuna or hamburger.  Not good for cats.  You would do much better trying some of the treats that are on the market specifically for cats--like the treats that are for hairball prevention or the ones for tartar control.  They are very tasty and cats love them.  But not too many in any one day.  I think lots of patience, love, and continuity will bring Tiger around eventually--unless, of course, he is truly feral.  Do you know if he has been neutered?  Neutering will calm him down a lot.  I would also advise having him declawed--at least his front paws.  That's mostly for your safety and comfort.

       I've enjoyed meeting you and talking to you.  I, too, am retired and have a lot of time to chat with other cat lovers.  Keep us posted on how it goes with Tiger.  Best wishes, Barbara, Izzy, and Pinky

Hi Cathy and welcome to TCS! You've definitely come to the right place if you want to meet fellow cat lovers! :lol3:
Miesha is gorgeous. She looks like she'd be a divine cuddle buddy, if she let you.
Good on ya indeed for taking the time and effort to socialize Tiger. I have no experience with ferals myself, but I'm sure you'll get good advice on the Ferals forum. All I know for sure about ferals is that it takes patience, patience and more patience.

Hi and welcome.     I'm also retired and live in Florida with our 3 cats, Tony, Angel and Tippytoes.   Angel and Tippytoes were strays who showed up at our door and are now living a luxurious life.    Both of them were friendly from the beginning so I can only assume they lived "somewhere" and both had been spayed.     tony was adopted from a lady who rescues cats and is the 11 year old daddy cat here. 

your kitties are beautiful and I hope you are able to socialize your strays.   I imagine it takes lots of patience and time, but I can't really say since I never had a feral cat.

Please keep us posted and look forward to chatting with you more.

Are you enjoying retirement? 

Welcome to TCS!  Your babies are beautiful!  Good luck with Tiger!

Hi and welcome! Your cats are beautiful and I hope Tiger will come around and see how great it is to be loved.

Thank you mrblanch...captiva...einseide...pushylady...kookycats....moochNNoodles and Hobo08 for the welcome!! 

Mrblanch,  I think Tiger is truly a feral.  I also think if I can it's going to be very difficult if not impossible to socialize him, but I'm not going to let that stop me!!  Wish me luck! .

Captiva, Thanks!  I think Mieshas beautiful too.

Einseidle, yes I had Tiger Neutered right away after I caught him. Thank you, I did not know tuna and hamburger were harmful to cats.  I've tryed some of those treats but he won't eat them.  I have to have something good when I visit him in his room so he looks forward to seeing me. Now I'm not sure what to do.  Thats one thing I will not do is declaw him. I had a very bad experience with declawing once and now I just don't believe in it. But I do appreciate all you advice, Thank you!  .

Pushylady,  Thanks for the welcome!! I've only had Miesha for a couple of months and it seems every day she gets a little more lovey.  Hopefully, eventually she'll be a real snuggler!! .

Kookycats, Thank you and yes I hope we can chat a lot more!  And yes again, I'm truly enjoying retirement.  I now have time to do the things I really like to do....gardening, feed the birds and deer and even a few hobbies.  After working hard all those years it's really nice!

MoochNNoodles,  Thank you!!

Hobo08,  I hope so too!

I'm really enjoying this site so far, meeting some really nice people and learning a lot of helpful things.  Tiger today seemed just a hair more responsive.  I hope I'm not just imagining things...ya'no, wishful thinking?!  But I will keep you all posted.  Thanks again!

                                                                                                                            Cathy

Welcome to TCS Cathy! What a wonderful thing you are doing for these strays

Good Morning All:

        I don't know if this will work with feral cats, i.e., Tiger, but I will pass on what I did with my two cats when I first got them as 7-week old kittens.  They were from a litter of an old barn cat that my neighbors had, and when they were brought to me, they were pretty shy and skitterish and wouldn't let me near them.  I put a box with a lot of soft towels, etc., a litter box, and bowls of water and food in a secluded corner of the entry.  For about a week they just stayed in the box and would only come out to eat and use the litter box.  I stayed away from them, watching them from behind the door.  After a few days I moved the water and food bowl about 10 inches closer to where I hid.  They found the bowls then went back to their box.  A couple of days later I moved the bowls a few inches closer to me.  Again, they found the bowls and ate, but this time they sort of roamed around in the area of the bowl, checking things out.  I followed this routine for two weeks, moving the bowls ever father away from their box until one day I moved them into the dining room.  The kittens cautiously came out of the entry and into the dining room, found their bowls, then started to explore.  All this time I never went near them--just sat very still a distance away and watched.  Then one day, while they were eating I slowly moved closer to them.  They gave me a look, but then went back to eating.  I tried this for several more days until one day I reached out to touch them while they were eating.  They let me do it, and after that I sat with them every day while they ate and touched them and petted them.  A few days later they walked over to me and started checking me out.  I dared, then, to see if I could pick one of them up.  Turned out to be Pinky that I picked up first.  While I was holding him, Izzy came over to us, so I picked him up, too.  After that, there was no problem.  I moved their box and bowls into the dining room and from then on, we were a family and they took over me and the house.   Ha

       Like I said above, I don't know if this would work with a truly feral cat, but as far as I was concerned, I considered my two kittens to be "wild" because they had been barn cats.  Today, six years later, you would never know that they weren't anything other than regular indoor cats.

       Boy, does writing the above ever bring back memories.  While I was going through all of it, I couldn't help but wonder if I was ever going to be able to get them to accept me, and what a thrill it was that first time I was able to pick them up.  After that I spent a lot of time with the two of them sitting in my lap, asleep.  Now, since they weigh 7.5 lbs and 8.2 lbs respectively, when they both try to get in my lap at the same time, I end up with a lot, a lot, a lot of cat.  I love it!!!!   Best wishes to everyone.  Barbara

Hi there welcome to TCS

Hello Everyone,  Had  a  breakthrough with Tiger yesterday!!  I've been laying on the floor about two feet from where he's always curled up when I walk in the room.  I crawl on all floors to that spot,  which is very hard for me to get down there with my old beat up body and with two replaced knees it is very, very uncomfortable!!  But he is worth all of it!!   Any way I crawl over to the spot and lay down.  I pretend I'm grooming myself,just like a cat would and yawn occasionally.  Some one on this site gave me those tips!  And yesterday he played with the fishing pole toy I bought for him!  Just a little bit but he did.  Then, he actually started grooming himself in front of me! He  showed his belly while grooming which to me is a very good sign!  Then he walked up to his food bowl that I brought in with a little wet food in it and ate it all!  Is that a breakthrough or what?!!  I'm so excited!  As soon as I'm done here I'm going up for our morning bath.  Wish me luck and thanks to everyone on this wonderful site!!!   Your new Friend.........Cathy  

Oh that's soooo exciting!!  Way to go Tiger!!