Feral turned Tame

a whole day together without any damage it really does sound like you are good to go as far as the two of them getting along well.

pretty girl ballooned up to 9.5 lbs (ideal weight is 7.5 lbs) while i was socializing her due to no real activity in the cage along with me trying to win her heart through her tummy. she still gobbles her food like a vacuum cleaner but she is slowly dropping the weight - down to 8.75 a few months ago.

i'll be interested to hear how she responds with "new" people around.

i love hearing how much progress she is making so keep the updates coming!

Amazing how nieve this old woman is about animals! Never knew it would take this amount of time for cats to become friendly.  But Edde is now wanting to play.  Iris is learning to play with mice. Chasing them beyond the boundaries beyond the bedroom.  Edde has been very gentle and now wants to play with her.  These kitties are gonna be bestest buddies I can see it.  Iris came out and saw the TV and was mezrmerized (sp) my kind of cat that loves the TV. LOL I am so happy and accepting the work that is required.  Although not as hard as many sites Ive seen.  I guess I did most of the hard work at work. I'm so very happy I brought her home.  I'm not sure I could do it a bunch though.  I admire you for that Todd. 

More updates tomorrow.

So happy for you and Iris and Edde! 

that is great that Iris is starting become even more adventuresome and that Edde has seemingly become accepting of her. i totally agree that it seems like the two of them are going to become thick as thieves.


your situation certainly is a testament to what can be done in so many cases, especially when a cat has had positive interaction with humans since a young age. no doubt that your rapid progress is due in great part to the fact that she has known you for basically her whole life. with my ferals the ones that have known me since they were very young have grown to show so much trust in me, even allowing me to pick them up a little bit. pretty girl was much more difficult since she was around four years old when she showed up at what is now my colony, she had a whole lot of mistrust built into her mindset.


i can not overstate how happy i am for all of you!

Thanks Todd!

Last night was awesome.  Edde and Iris are now playing a little bit. I carried Iris out to the living room and sat her in my lap.  She sat there for at least 30 minutes while I petted and rubbed her belly. The huband was shocked. I told him to go get the camera, but he didn't. So much for him telling me she wouldn't do well again.  Wrong! I love proving the naysayers wrong.

Today I have set out the trap at work to catch Iris' mama. Hopefully, I will be able to trap her and take her to the vet tomorrow. I will bring her back though and continue to feed her.  She does talk to me when I see her and blinks. She just won't let me get anywhere close to her. At least I know I have taken care of her baby.

As I said previously, I will be going out of town for a few days and hope things don't backslide while we are gone.  But really don't think so since they have started playing and Iris has ventured a little further each day.

Ms. Marti

thanks! Hard work does pay off. Now trying to catch Iris' mama before she has more kittens. I will bring her back to the office and continue to feed her.

you're not kidding, that is awesome!

since she has developed such a large amount of trust there is one thing that might not be a bad idea regarding Iris - in the near future start trying to familiarize her with a carrier. perhaps try putting treats into it for her. sooner or later (hopefully later ) you will need to get her to the vet and when that time comes it will be so much smoother if she has been familiarized with a carrier. look at the trouble that Bastfriend as well as my self have had with this issue.

good luck with mama. talking to you as well as blinking to you are very good signs, so don't be surprised if after she gets altered you start to see her warming up to you more than she has so far. you never know, eventually you my have one more family member.

Whaler said:

you will need to get her to the vet and when that time comes it will be so much smoother if she has been familiarized with a carrier. look at the trouble that Bastfriend as well as my self have had with this issue.

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LOL!   Yes,trouble indeed.  I like Whaler's treat training idea.  Though Iris already sounds way more handleable than my Patches - still I wonder if even a fully tamed former feral would have a stronger panic response if someone tries to grab and confine them than a kitten handled from birth.    Big Guy is Patches' son and knew me from 8 weeks on and I can literally do anything with him and he never tries to hurt me or run away with much force, though he might squirm a bit.   I've even given him subq fluids and eye drops.    But I digress......Cruzn it sounds like things are going awesomely with Iris and Edde congratulations!  

cruzn said:

Hello,
this is my first post on this site. I have been feeding a colony of ferals for several months now.  The kittens (or Kitten) are now about 8-9 months old. I have already taken Iris to the vet and had her shots, dewormed and URI, and the rest of her shots and testing.

After the spaying, I took her home in a placed her in a big cage while she recovered.  During the time she was in the cage she hissed and slapped at me.  I decided to return her to the colony. (BTW she had lost her litter mate a few days before I took her in and she was still looking and meowing for him).

After returning her to the colony she has become real attached to me.  She lets me pick her up, rub her belly and gives me kitty kisses. She comes when I call her and wants me to love on her.  I am again thinking of taking her home since the area she is living in is somewhat dangerous (parking garage with alley, but hot a lot of traffic). I do have a female cat that is about 4 yrs. old.

I do still need to trap the mama cat.  The mama doesn't have anything to do with Iris, but she does come to eat each day. But mama doesn't have anything to do with me.

My question is:  Will I have any luck bringing Iris into my home?  She is getting friendlier to people coming into the garage instead of hiding.  She will also let other people pet her when I with her.  What to do now???

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

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i
I would try again and see how she does in your home.

cruzn said:

As I said previously, I will be going out of town for a few days and hope things don't backslide while we are gone.

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Prepare there may a some, temporary, backslide.  But after a few days you will be up again, and beyond,  dont worry!

Good luck!

Mimi72!  Welcome to our Forums!

I presume you DO have your own story about helping homeless? New or old?

Open your own tread and please tell!  Pics welcome too!

Good luck!

You should see my posts. I have taken her home with much success! With the help here.

LOL! Well never say never! But it NOT my intention at all to take anymore kitties home. I did trap the dad yesterday.  I was trying for mama but oh well maybe I will get her today. I sure wasn't planning all of this at one time.  I have put it off too long just like Iris.

I'm still having the issue of Iris eating eating! Could it be that the food I'm feeding them is a lite food and she is requiring more calories? I don't want Edde to get overweight since she is older. But I also don't want to starve Iris.  (which obviously she's not starving).  Iris doesn't seem protective of the food like she was in the colony. Guess old habits are hard to break.

Thanks for advice and reminder about the carrier.  I need to work with both. I have always been able to take my cats in the car without a carrier. But we aren't talking about normal circumstances now.  I'll work on the carrier immediately.

Sad note for the daddy feral. I had decided this morning when I took Iris' daddy in to be altered to have him tested. (I wasn't going to at first because Iris had tested negative). But something inside me said "Go Ahead".  Well I just got the call from the vet's office.  He tested positive for AIDS. Guess it really was meant for me to trap him afterall.  Mama is going to be all alone now in the parking garage. With all this being said "Anyone out there taking ferals to the vet be sure to spend the extra money and have them tested. Only sorry that he had to be put down.

I'm so sorry. But whether or not he had to be put down is actually debatable, unless he was really sick and suffering. :rub: Most TNR programs do not test for FeLV or FIV because of the expense. FeLV is certainly "more" communicable than FIV, but prevalence is still estimated to be between 3% - 5% of the feral cat population in the US, where FIV prevalence is thought to be 1% - 2%.

But once they're sterilized, the behavior (principally mating or fighting over mating/territory) that passes FIV along is diminished. FIV requires a deep tissue bite wound to be infectious to another cat. I have a rescued FIV+ kitty living inside-only with us - one of 8 in an RV. We also have an FIV+ kitty in our feral colony of 11. We've only had to take two of the kitties in to the vet for treatment for something since being trapped, but out of curiousity, we had them tested, and both remain FIV-.

FIV isn't AIDS. If he was suffering, in an advanced stage of the disease (which IS then AIDS), that's different. But if he was simply positive for FIV, that's like having HIV in people. If someone has HIV, they can have a roommate, and they can safely share a bathroom, drinking glasses, eat food off the same plate, etc. :dk: But please know that FIV is NOT "AIDS," and FIV+ kitties can live long, normal lives, especially if fed a healthy diet. If a vet calls a kitty with FIV that presents no symptoms of illness "aids," it simply means the vet is FIV illiterate. (And there are plenty of them). http://www.v63.net/catsanctuary/vet_question.html

FIV+ kitties do tend to have dental problems, so even feral kitties ought to be retrapped to have annual dentals.

:heart2:

And for trapping Momma!

EWWW I feel a little ignorant now.  Uneducated vet?  Yes we don't put HIV positve people to sleep. My mistake. Thanks for the education anyway.  I didn't go through a TNR program. Although the group that I got the trap from initially with Iris does test. Geez I don't know if he was sick or not, I rarely saw him in the months I have been feeding the colony.

Lesson learned! Thanks!

I didn't know either. I didn't go through a TNR program either, just learning from doing and from help of the good people of TCS. We originally had the cats we trapped tested for FIV/FeLV, but we do all our rescuing/TNRing at our own expense. After years of no cats turning up positive for either, we stopped testing. I read about the thinking on testing as various groups debated the issue, and in the end, the consensus was - don't test. I'm sure there are groups and people that do.

So we stopped spending the money on the test, and this REALLY aggressive feral shows up. Poor thing must have been just absolutely starving. But he chased all the ferals away (and I mean cats that had been coming regularly at meal time for several years) - yet was so food motivated, he became ... not friendly, but not afraid, within just a few days. So when we trapped him, we knew we couldn't release him. (And it took 3 days of him not being around for the other ferals to come back!!).

The local foster organization agreed to take him, but being May, it was kitten season. So we rented a trailer (we live full time in an RV) for him, as he's an adult feral, estimated age: 3 - 4 years old. Living in the RV, we have no way to separate cats, and we were worried about him as he was so aggressive. So he had his own trailer. :lol3: We spent time socializing him (and poor guy was such a health mess). So a month or so goes by, and the foster org calls to say they have space for him. So we take him to the vet for his first distemper vaccine and the FIV/FeLV test. We say our good byes.

Well, when we came home that evening, there was a message from the vet - this kitty tested positive for FIV! The foster org cannot intake him, it is their policy to euthanise FIV+ kitties (they're too hard to adopt out because of the stigma).

Well - we didn't know anything about FIV at the time. But we picked him up, brought him back to his trailer, and started researching. There's a TCS member that has rescued several FIV+ kitties, and her shelter/TNR organization doesn't euthanize them, and she kindly posted links so we could learn.

It was a bit of a decision for us, because we have an immune compromised kitty. But our vets, as it turns out, are pretty FIV literate, and were supportive of our decision to adopt him.

The only real issue we faced was introducing him. But we solved that one by deciding just to bring him over here for a few minutes daily at first, and just make the amount of time he spent here longer and longer. (We did scent swapping, &etc. first). After three weeks... he just never went "home" to his trailer.

And if you've taken the time to read all of this :lol3: , the point is that we don't know what we don't know. Especially when it comes to kitties and health, we tend to trust our vets, and there's nothing wrong with that. But they're not infallible. :heart2: We just have to learn along the way. :rub:

Thanks so much for making me feel a little better. Geez I thought I was a nut for cats! LOL The ferals I've been trying to help are my first. So to say the least I have a long way to go. How very lucky for your cat to have been rescued by you and to have rented a special trailer for him. I did debate this morning about having him tested. I guess what we don't know won't hurt us. I feel somewhat guilty that the mama cat is going to be all alone now.  Several people have told me she will be friendlier after being altered.  Well I'm such a pushover, but I know that I will just have to take care of her here at work. But maybe she will get to a point where she will be adoptable.  That's the ticket, I must work with her to tame her too. In my old age I've found its cheaper to rescue animals than people. LOL.... Took a while to figure that one out.

How many ferals do you have?

Thanks again.

We've rescued both too, and while rescuing people can be rewarding.... we prefer rescuing kitties. :lol3:

Our rescue work is rather contained these days. When we rescued the first kittens, we became really involved in rescue, fostering, etc., and enlisted four of the local vet practices (and the staff) in our work. We did a lot of trapping across two counties, and did some long distance work, transport, etc. as well. But these days hubby is medically challenged, so we moved out of the house in 2008 and back into the RV (we were on the road full time for work for a while, it suits us). Since then, the only TNR work we've done is in the RV park. (Before we moved into a house, we worked with all the local farms to get the barn cats sterilized. And given the greatly reduced amount of cats that turn up needing TNR here, looks like they've continued to sterilize the cats. One we know adopts ferals for their barn cats, as they get them from the foster group we work with now).

There are currently 11 in the feral colony: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/252410/most-of-the-current-feral-crew

We still haven't trapped Tommy.

All of our indoor-only pets are feral rescues. Other than the first two and Billy (we adopted out his brother to whom he was very attached - we just could not find a home for the pair, and we couldn't leave him outside alone!), the rest are (or were) health or physically challenged. ...and our very first rescue kitty, Lazlo (June 2002 - notice my TCS join date LOL), is now a cancer survivor. :heart2: He's been in remission since completing chemo Jan 31 2012. :cross:

I do spend quite a bit of time on advocacy work since we can't do as much physical work any longer. I'm part of a small group that alerts each other to ferals in the news, and we address misinformation via comments or notes to editors, journalists, bloggers, etc., and other various things, like coordinated replies to US Fish & Wildlife proposed programs, that kind of thing. When I write a research piece, I publish it in the predation section of my website http://www.straypetadvocacy.org/cat_predation.html

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I wanted to add, AWESOME job with Iris! Your Edde sounds like such a sweet girl. :rub: Three of our 8 are female, and two of them are very pissy about new kitties. My main advice when it comes to new introductions (which you obviously don't need :lol3: ) is give a lot of extra love and attention to your existing kitty, especially in front of the new kitty. The reassurance usually helps. Just something to keep in mind for the future LOL, as things have gone so smoothly! :heart2: