Found Black long haired cat. What to do?

Last night I found a cat in the neighborhood, hanging around the house. The cat appears to be female, and has a semi-long, solid brownish/black coat and green eyes. She is also very large, she appears to be almost three feet standing on her hind toes. She also has large paws, extra long whiskers, and her 'fangs are the largest I've seen on a cat. She's clearly been socialized to humans, but maybe she's been living on her own for a long time. Her teeth are exceptionally clean.

I fed her and stayed with her a bit last night and found she was very friendly and very talkative(her meow sounds a little weak, and sad). My roommate picked her up and she just stayed in their arms. Eventually, we put her down and she roamed away. 

Today I found her under a tree in our yard resting, and brought her inside. She is currently in the bathroom with me. I just fed her a little bit and set out some water, though she doesn't seem interested in that. She doesn't seem sickly, but she feels a little bony, though it's tough to tell with her fur. She seems thinner than any indoor/outdoor cat I've encountered in the past. She doesn't look terribly unkempt like some strays, but the fur around her front and hind legs is a bit short and appears  brownish. I'm thinking she had matted fur that was removed some time ago.

Sorry for the long description but I'm not sure what to do with her. We will be moving soon so we won't be able to feed her regularly. Should I put out a lost cat ad? She has no tag that I can see. Maybe she has a chip though. Should I take her to a vet? I know of a shelter that would likely be willing to take her in, and I can afford to pay for some care for her if she needs it. I'm concerned to just leaver her to roam because we live very close to the highway. Advice?

She sounds as if she was someone's pet cat that has either got lost or been abandoned. She certainly needs your help if she is looking skinny, even more so if you live near the highway. 

Getting her scanned for a chip would be the first step. If she doesn't have one then you could check Craig's list for lost cats in your area. Any local shelters should be able to tell you of other places to post a found cat notice. Vet's offices and pet stores would be a good place to start.

Thank you for helping her. One of my cats disappeared over a year ago but I'm still looking for him. There might be someone out there hoping she'll come home.

Agree with NoraChan.   She is no semiferale, [she is] abandoned or stray.  So you shall strive to secure her help - new home.   If you dont manage to find the owner (if she got lost)    you can perhaps yourself find her a new owner?   Ask among your friends, neig bours,  school pals, etc...

If she is friendly, and seems to have all the looks of a Maine Coon, it shouldnt be too hard.

Good luck!

Thanks. She's very beautiful and personable. I found her again today and got a better look at her(she showed me her tummy!). She doesn't appear to be as thin as I'd thought, but I can feel her ribs a little more prominently than with my cat. She was resting under our tree again. I think she knows I'll feed her. She seemed a little hungrier today than the other days. 

She doesn't seem interested in the water I'm offering her(I don't think she has rabies, I think she either doesn't like the bowl or is getting water elsewhere), but she devours the food. 

I want to take her to the vet, but there are no vets or shelters that are open this late today or open at all tomorrow, other than 24 hour ones. I'm considering taking her to a 24 hour vet if I can find one nearby.

Alright, I'm taking her to the 24 hour vet. It's a bit of a drive but we'll see if I can find some contact info.

Good luck, I hope everything goes well at the vets.

KissCat said:

 
Thanks. She's very beautiful and personable. I found her again today and got a better look at her(she showed me her tummy!). She doesn't appear to be as thin as I'd thought, but I can feel her ribs a little more prominently than with my cat. She was resting under our tree again. I think she knows I'll feed her. She seemed a little hungrier today than the other days. 

She doesn't seem interested in the water I'm offering her(I don't think she has rabies, I think she either doesn't like the bowl or is getting water elsewhere), but she devours the food. 

I want to take her to the vet, but there are no vets or shelters that are open this late today or open at all tomorrow, other than 24 hour ones. I'm considering taking her to a 24 hour vet if I can find one nearby.

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When being at the vet, DONT mention a word about rabies!   She clearly doenst have, she must have her own water somewhere.

Also, when they eat, they usually dont drink simultaneously. Unlike us humans.  So if she isnt very thirsty, she will not drink your water - if she has possibility to get her own.   Exactly what you tell yourself.

Oh I didn't mention it. 

She doesn't have a tag. So no knowing where she might have come from. I've got a few pictures, so I'll probably see if I can put out some feelers and find anyone looking for a list cat. The emergency vet mentioned calling animal control, but I'm not sure if that's the best idea. 

So I call the cat Baby now because she's adorable and meows a lot. Probably won't be her permanent name but who knows.

I spoke to our nice neighbors next door and they said she doesn't have any owner. There are a few strays in this part of the neighborhood that had a parent who was abandoned, from what they said. They said Baby's been drinking water from their fountain and she catches birds in their backyard so that could explain why she's not in as bad shape as some city strays are. There was an offer to adopt her, but I don't know where she is when it comes to using the litter box. She's pretty calm indoors. She's resting in the bathroom with me now, though she is waiting to be let out. I'm still keeping her separate from the other cats but it's so hot out today I figured she could use a break. 

I'm going to call the shelter and see if they will be able to take her, but that won't be till tomorrow. A friend suggested making a little area for her in our garage, which I might do. Suggestions?

Good luck

Well, it's good to know that Baby has some clean drinking water after all. Who offered to adopt her, was that your nice neighbours?

It would be fairly easy to litter box train Baby, if she isn't already litter box trained. (If she had a home before she probably is.) If you make a space for her to sleep in your garage put a litter box in there with her and see if she uses it. If she's used to going outside some earth from the garden is a good thing to use instead of litter at first. You can also get cat litter that attracts cats to it. (I think it's called Kitty Attract, not sure about that though.)

It would be better for Baby if you could find her a new home or keep her yourself, rather than stressing her out by taking her to a shelter. If that's not possible please make sure you take her to a no-kill shelter.

I talked with my roommate and we decided to call her Felicity.

My roommate offered to take her, but Felicity hasn't been getting along with our cats when she sees them, and the place my roommate is moving to has a steep pet fee. I may be able to keep her, but it depends on where I end up moving. If the place has a low pet fee/rent than I could likely take her, and she could even be a good playmate for my Dali with enough time for them to get used to one another.

We reached out through facebook to see if anyone is interested. And I also think my parents could adopt her if they like her.

She's set up in the garage with some water, a makeshift litter box, a folded towel to rest on, and a scratch pad. The litter in the box had been moved when I went to check on her, and it looks like she used it! So at this point I think she had a home as a kitten/young cat but was abandoned.

I'm going to take her to the vet in the morning and try to find out if she is spayed, have some small mats removed from her inner legs, and make sure she doesn't have any diseases that she might pass to other cats. If she's not spayed, then once I'm sure she won't pass anything contagious to the other cats, I'll have her spayed and keep her in the house or in my room to recover. Thank goodness I'll have more free time than usual this week!

Thanks very much to everyone who posted. I think she'll be a wonderful companion for someone!

Oh that's great!



I'm so glad that you were the one to find Felicity,  she is going to have a happy ending to her story after all.

I hope everything goes well at the vets.

Let us see some pictures of her when you get chance. She sounds like a beauty.

Alright, so we took a trip to the vet this morning and discovered some things. She is actually he! So we call him Felix (in my defense, the vet had a very hard time finding out that he was male, too). He's also neutered and has consistently used the litterbox today, which I think shows that he was indeed someone's pet at some point but was likely left here as the neighbors say. He came back negative for FIV and Feline Leukemia, so that's good news, but he did have some fleas. He was a little testy at the vet, but overall did very well. 

He's also quite young. The vet noticed that his teeth are clean, no tartar, so they think he's no more than 2 years. He weighs 11 pounds, and I didn't get to ask the vet but I think this is pretty thin considering his size.  At the vet, I had some mats shaved off his belly, some vaccinations given to him, and some flea medicine to kill the adult fleas quickly, along with more medicine to help protect from the eggs. He's currently lounging around in my room, where he's spent the day to rest, and I'm brushing him to try to get those dead fleas out. We'll also be buying some flea medication for our cats, just in case.

Overall he's doing very well and we're hoping to have a permanent home for him soon!

Wow, so Felicity is now Felix. He's gorgeous.

I'm glad you got on so well at the vet. Fleas are easily taken care of, you'd expect an outdoor cat to have picked up a few.

Are you going to keep him or have you found him a home somewhere else?

I would adopt him, but I'm not sure what my pet fees are going to look like when I move, and I already have one cat. My schedule will also be busy and he gets along with other cats very poorly, so I won't be there enough of the time to ensure he and my Dali have a relationship that's good and don't hurt each other. He also has claws and Dali doesn't(a previous owner declawed her), so I think it's that much more important to be around. His main interactions with other cats have probably been fights, so he's wary of our cats and will get aggressive if he feels threatened.

My roommate and I have some potential people, and my parent's yard is perfect for an indoor/outdoor cat, so we're pretty hopeful about finding someone soon. My roommate may even adopt him.

For now he's staying in my room. He's pretty tired and a little sore from his vaccinations, poor baby. My roommates should be around to keep an eye on him while I work tomorrow.

If you are not going to adopt the cat, and even if you do, just in case she did get lost give the owners a chance, but becareful, if you take out a Craigslist ad, don't post a picture, just say a black cats and have them tell you the eye color and or send you a photo 1st...

I've been looking over a lot of lost and found pet boards, craigslist, whatever, looking for anything that's similar, but the most similar cats have had a key difference, such as being declawed, or the time doesn't match up at all(like he couldn't have been lost in 2009 because he wasn't even born then), the neighbors have also said he doesn't belong to anyone, and I don't think they would just say that willy nilly, being life-long cat owners and rescuers.

My parents have told me I can take him to their house so they can care for him for a while(I'm making the drive tomorrow afternoon), but now I feel all conflicted. Like have I done enough to look for an owner? Should I take him out of the place he's used to? Will he do okay being at my parents'?

He knows to hang around the house so I don't necessarily need to take him anywhere yet, but I will be moving in less than a month and no one else in the neighborhood seems to regularly put food out for him.

I don't know. Help?

I don't have any definite 'yes's where my parents live, so I think I'll let him stay here for now