Hi there,
My boyfriend and I found an abandoned cat living in some hollowed out stairs of an apartment building. We think she's been there about two weeks because some of the residents of the building had noticed some cat droppings starting to appear about that long ago. I work next door to the building and often have to briefly run in and out of the foyer. It was four days ago, while running into the foyer that I heard an incessant meowing. And I mean an aggressive "hey there look at me!" meowing.
At first I thought for sure the cat was a kitten, maybe 6-8 months old. She was dusty, probably from the old apartment stairs, and so skinny. I called up my boyfriend to bring a tin of cat food. We wanted to only feed her a small portion of the tin, but before we could even scoop out a small bit, she had grabbed the whole patty and devoured it. We know that for a starving kitty, a large portion isn't a smart first meal, but we tried and what's done is done. Probably could have figured out a system before opening the tin, but looking at a cat like that kind of takes rationality out of the equation. She also lapped up water, she was clearly parched as well as hungry.
So obviously we took her home. We tried a bit more successfully to feed her small amounts throughout the day, but the first night, we had to eat outside because any kind of food near the cat lit the hunger fire and she'd go completely crazy. The next day, she was almost completely clean, something she did almost entirely on her own, despite some initial baby wipe help from us. Her fur and her eyes show no sign of illness (of course I'm not a vet) and her stool looks normal and there are no signs of worms. She's incredibly loving and gives lots of cuddles and sleeps with us at night, usually curled up between us.
Now that she's cleaned up, it's shocking that we mistook her for a kitten, she's very tiny and still awfully skinny (we can feel every last bone in her spine), but she's definitely an adult. Maybe young, because she can be quite playful and is very alert, but no longer a kitten.
I really think that she was a "loved" house cat before we found her. Either somehow she got lost (the optimistic option) or, as it's holiday season, someone thought that abandoning her was the easiest way to go to the beach for a two weeks.
We don't know for sure if we're going to keep her yet, but until we find her a good home she'll be with us. Bringing her to vet is on our list, but financially we can't do that instantly, we're researching free clinics in the area....
The area we're struggling with the most, is her feeding. I know there's such a thing as "hunger anxiety" in animals, particularly domesticated who may have had insecurity in when their next meal would be. If we start cooking food or open the refrigerator or eat a snack she goes into "eating mode" and mews for us to give her food. We have to make sure we clear away any dishes with traces of food on it or she'll find them and lick them. If we drop sauce on the floor she'll lick it up. We had to move the garbage outside because she gets far too focused on the food smells. She's even taken to chewing on our dish sponge to get the last bits of food off of it.
She's definitely being fed enough with us, maybe even too much, considering she's a very petite little cat.
Usually about 45 minutes after we feed her (and we like to feed her as we eat our dinner so as not to make her too jealous), she'll stop looking for more food and be her calm, loving, cuddly self. But it's that hour surrounding her feeding time that is really difficult to handle. She had even dragged out the foil of her wet food from the garbage, and it was already individually wrapped in a plastic bag, and I found her tearing it apart so she could lick up as much of the residue as possible. She's not an aggressive cat when it comes to food. She doesn't snarl at us if we take something away or forcefully try and get food from us, but she is persistent. After she eats she just turns into a Roomba going into every crevice of the apartment looking for some stray food. And even trying to hold her back from her bowl as I just scoop the food into her bowl is near impossible. If anyone has any kind of advice, for how to get her calm about meal times please share! For the time being we're just giving her wet food, about two packs a day.
Other than that I can't think of any other sign of illness. She sleeps tranquilly and takes little cat naps. There is no weird fluids coming from any part of her. She's alert, she purrs, she has cleaned herself so perfectly, you'd never even imagine she had ever been as dusty as she was. Her paw pads are rough but not diseased or inflamed in anyway. She does have a crooked tail tip that was clearly broken, but it shows no sign of pain and she moves her tail like any other cat. And she is definitely the sweetest kitty I have ever met, and I come from a family that has accidentally ended up with a constant stream of stray cats that decided our home was theirs.
Thanks!
-Charlotte
My boyfriend and I found an abandoned cat living in some hollowed out stairs of an apartment building. We think she's been there about two weeks because some of the residents of the building had noticed some cat droppings starting to appear about that long ago. I work next door to the building and often have to briefly run in and out of the foyer. It was four days ago, while running into the foyer that I heard an incessant meowing. And I mean an aggressive "hey there look at me!" meowing.
At first I thought for sure the cat was a kitten, maybe 6-8 months old. She was dusty, probably from the old apartment stairs, and so skinny. I called up my boyfriend to bring a tin of cat food. We wanted to only feed her a small portion of the tin, but before we could even scoop out a small bit, she had grabbed the whole patty and devoured it. We know that for a starving kitty, a large portion isn't a smart first meal, but we tried and what's done is done. Probably could have figured out a system before opening the tin, but looking at a cat like that kind of takes rationality out of the equation. She also lapped up water, she was clearly parched as well as hungry.
So obviously we took her home. We tried a bit more successfully to feed her small amounts throughout the day, but the first night, we had to eat outside because any kind of food near the cat lit the hunger fire and she'd go completely crazy. The next day, she was almost completely clean, something she did almost entirely on her own, despite some initial baby wipe help from us. Her fur and her eyes show no sign of illness (of course I'm not a vet) and her stool looks normal and there are no signs of worms. She's incredibly loving and gives lots of cuddles and sleeps with us at night, usually curled up between us.
Now that she's cleaned up, it's shocking that we mistook her for a kitten, she's very tiny and still awfully skinny (we can feel every last bone in her spine), but she's definitely an adult. Maybe young, because she can be quite playful and is very alert, but no longer a kitten.
I really think that she was a "loved" house cat before we found her. Either somehow she got lost (the optimistic option) or, as it's holiday season, someone thought that abandoning her was the easiest way to go to the beach for a two weeks.
We don't know for sure if we're going to keep her yet, but until we find her a good home she'll be with us. Bringing her to vet is on our list, but financially we can't do that instantly, we're researching free clinics in the area....
The area we're struggling with the most, is her feeding. I know there's such a thing as "hunger anxiety" in animals, particularly domesticated who may have had insecurity in when their next meal would be. If we start cooking food or open the refrigerator or eat a snack she goes into "eating mode" and mews for us to give her food. We have to make sure we clear away any dishes with traces of food on it or she'll find them and lick them. If we drop sauce on the floor she'll lick it up. We had to move the garbage outside because she gets far too focused on the food smells. She's even taken to chewing on our dish sponge to get the last bits of food off of it.
She's definitely being fed enough with us, maybe even too much, considering she's a very petite little cat.
Usually about 45 minutes after we feed her (and we like to feed her as we eat our dinner so as not to make her too jealous), she'll stop looking for more food and be her calm, loving, cuddly self. But it's that hour surrounding her feeding time that is really difficult to handle. She had even dragged out the foil of her wet food from the garbage, and it was already individually wrapped in a plastic bag, and I found her tearing it apart so she could lick up as much of the residue as possible. She's not an aggressive cat when it comes to food. She doesn't snarl at us if we take something away or forcefully try and get food from us, but she is persistent. After she eats she just turns into a Roomba going into every crevice of the apartment looking for some stray food. And even trying to hold her back from her bowl as I just scoop the food into her bowl is near impossible. If anyone has any kind of advice, for how to get her calm about meal times please share! For the time being we're just giving her wet food, about two packs a day.
Other than that I can't think of any other sign of illness. She sleeps tranquilly and takes little cat naps. There is no weird fluids coming from any part of her. She's alert, she purrs, she has cleaned herself so perfectly, you'd never even imagine she had ever been as dusty as she was. Her paw pads are rough but not diseased or inflamed in anyway. She does have a crooked tail tip that was clearly broken, but it shows no sign of pain and she moves her tail like any other cat. And she is definitely the sweetest kitty I have ever met, and I come from a family that has accidentally ended up with a constant stream of stray cats that decided our home was theirs.
Thanks!
-Charlotte
