Feral or stray?.. its in my linen cupboard...

I have been feeding a stray(?) for the last few months, its been living under the house, this week I trapped it with SPCA trap, and took it to the vet to have her checked and spayed.. she is about 10 months old. She escaped from the cage twice while she was there overnight and I picked her up yesterday while she was still asleep and bought her home. I had a cage that I put her into with litter box, food etc and left it in the bathroom. A while later I went in and she had groggily managed to get through the wire and was climbing the walls, ending up in the bath, still not able to stand properly from the anaesetic, hissing at me... I opened a cupbaord where the towels and stuff are, and left her. A couple of hours later I went in and she had managed to get hjerself onto a shelf with the soft towels and has stayed there since.I have left a small litter box, water and some food close by and left the door open into the bathroom but closed of from the rest of the house. THe house is really quiet and I am guessing I just give her a good 48 hours to cathc her breathe? I am wondering if I have done the right thing...any advice please?? I am really out of my depth and unsure what to do next? is it less stress for her to go back under the house? am I being niave thinking I can tame her?

Hi, welcome to The Cat Site.

Would you like to keep her as a house cat or are you planning on putting her back outside once she has recovered? I think it's not too late to get her used to people and now that you've managed to trap her and get her spayed the hardest part is already over.

Give her time. Even if things don't work out and she has to go back out she'll need at least a week to recover from her operation and your bathroom cupboard is the best place to do this.

For now I would recommend leaving her to recover as you have done. She'll probably decided the cupboard is her safe spot and stay there. Before you go into the room talk to her softly from outside so that she doesn't get surprised by you suddenly opening the door. If you can spend some time in the room every day talking to her she'll get used to the sound of your voice. I'd recommend bringing some tasty wet food or another kind of treat with you every time you visit, so she starts to associate you with nice things.

If you could get a Feliway plug in for the bathroom it will help her stay calm

One of my ex-feral cats lived in a closet for a month when he first came indoors, don't worry if she takes her time.

Since my last post  she has managed to get into the wall between the cupboard and the ceiling!! I have left food and water for her and the litter tray in the bottom of the cupboard..(its a big cupboard!). I am debating putting it closer to her but am thinking I should leave it so she will have to venture down at some stage? We are tapping on the door and talking softly when we go in... she still hasnt eaten or drunk anything tho...or used the litter tray.....I am worried she may be hurt?

I feel a little more positive if your one lived in the closet for a month and came round!! I'd like her to be a part of the family, and be comfortable both in and out and around us.

I think she's just trying to find herself a safe spot. That is common with feral cats. After the month of living in a cupboard I bought a large cat cage and now all my rescued ferals go in there while they adjust. They have a covered bed to hide in and I drape blankets all over the cage so they feel safe. It's usual for them to just hunker down and do nothing for the first 24 ~ 48 hours while they assess the situation. As long as she has access to food, water and a litter box you don't need to worry. She'll come down when she is ready.

Thank you for trying to help her. She's going to have such a great life thanks to you.

Thank you so much for your responses! I went into the bathroom late last night and she was curled up on a cushion on the washing machine, I stayed low and didnt look at her (the washing machine is in an alcove) and put fresh food down for her. This morning she was still on the washing machine, she seemed asleep  and didnt move when I went in. The food has been eaten, so I have replaced it and also put some dirt in the dirt box as opposed to just kitty litter. She hasn't used the litter box so far. I am relieved she has eaten, a little concerned about where she has  been toileting but cant smell anything in there.... she was TNR'd on Friday late afternoon and apparently didnt eat at the SPCA at all so maybe her outputs are all reduced?

A part of me thinks I should have left her under the house, she is obviously so stressed now!

Eating her food and staying curled up asleep when you're in the room doesn't sound like she is stressed out at all to me. That's great progress in such a short time.

Update... all is calm! she is eating and still snoozing on the washing machine, slipping calmly down the back when we have a shower, then returning to  the cushion on top.  She has used the dirt box,  Am I right in thinking we just have to be really patient now and let her sort us out for herself? I have been playing cat calming music for an hour or 2 a day and she can hear us talking as we only have a really small place, we do go in the bathroom every now and then to sing a few songs to her! Any comments on what to expect would be appreciated, I don't know anyone else who has done this and really appreciate your advice!

It sounds like it's all going really well so far. I guess she's had quite a lot of human interaction already? Very wild feral cats take a lot longer to get that comfortable.

Now that she is used to being indoors you could try spending more time with her. The more time she spends around people the better. Try sitting in the bathroom for an hour or so everyday, talking to her gently. Take a book or your PC or some knitting to keep you occupied and just sit there, chatting away but not making a lot of eye contact so that she gets used to your presence. 

Make sure she has water all the time, but take some really tasty, strong smelling wet food in with you a couple of time a day and put it down in her usual eating place. Then just sit down, not too close to the food and look at a book or whatever while you talk to her. You want to get her used to the sound of your voice and to learn that you bring the food, but don't look at her or pay too much attention to what she is doing. Cats see eye contact as a warning to stay away.

Have you tried using A Feliway Diffuser? These give off a smell similar to the "calm" hormones a cat emits. They'll help her stay relaxed.

With feral cats I let them decide how fast things move and how close they want to get, but anything you can do to build up positive associations with you in her mind will help.

Good luck, keep us posted.

I will try a feriway iffuser, I had never heard of them so thanks for that. Im not sure about human interaction... she had been livinhg under our house for  3 months or so prior to my trapping her.. I think she may have been left when people moved?  we have a house cat who is rather aloof, but I am thinking they mus be aware of each other? we have never heard any fighting or anything... we have them seperated and the resident cat has shown no interest whatsoever in the fact there is another cat in the bathroom... would the resident cat help with the adjustment or just add pressure?

OK, well if she is an abandoned stray rather than feral born that will make things a lot easier. Even a feral born kitten who's mother was either fed by someone or once lived with someone is easier that a true feral. The fact that she stayed under your house makes me think she might have been taken care of by someone once before.

As far as your resident cat goes, it really depends on the personality of the two cats.  I think you should get her used to you first before you try and do the introductions. Does your house cat go outside at all? They may have already met and sorted things out by themselves. Even so, wait until she is really comfortable with you before you let them come face to face. She'll smell differently now that she's been spayed, so he might not react to her in the same way.

So today the SPCA rang to see how I was getting on with her... and suggested I let her go back outside... that she may just be an outside cat. and would be happier outside... its only been 5 days and she is still sitting on her cushion on the washing machine most of the time,  hissing and occassionally hiding out down behind it for an  hour or so if I get too close..... everything I have read on this site gives me hope that she will come round, that I have to be patient.... it's not one of my strong points!! thoughts? 

If she's out sitting on a cushion after just five days, it doesn't sound like she's a completely untamable feral, so the SPCA person's recommendation is surprising. A lot of ferals that have been taken in need weeks or months to get up the courage to show themselves to humans, and some never do. Some only come around after years, and then only tolerate their regular caregivers.


Hissing doesn't mean she can't be tamed, just that you need to take it slow. Spending time in the room with her, talking or reading aloud in a soft voice and trying Feliway are excellent pieces of advice. I've found that finding treats the cats like works wonders. You can leave a few in the room for her, then progress to tossing them to her, placing them closer and closer to her, and hopefully getting to the point where you can put them right in front of her nose or get her to take them from your fingers.

Greed and curiosity are your friends when dealing with skittish strays or ferals. Does she meow at you? Does she make eye contact when she wants to be fed? Those are signs of a stray, or sometimes of a feral that is becoming more confident around humans, but usually the former.

jcat said:

If she's out sitting on a cushion after just five days, it doesn't sound like she's a completely untamable feral, so the SPCA person's recommendation is surprising. A lot of ferals that have been taken in need weeks or months to get up the courage to show themselves to humans, and some never do. Some only come around after years, and then only tolerate their regular caregivers.

Hissing doesn't mean she can't be tamed, just that you need to take it slow. Spending time in the room with her, talking or reading aloud in a soft voice and trying Feliway are excellent pieces of advice. I've found that finding treats the cats like works wonders. You can leave a few in the room for her, then progress to tossing them to her, placing them closer and closer to her, and hopefully getting to the point where you can put them right in front of her nose or get her to take them from your fingers.

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 You've made so much progress with her in such a short time. I wouldn't say she's untameable at all.

With regard to the hissing, one of my former ferals is a huge hisser.  The people at the shelter were terrified of him.  I have had him inside for two years now and he is a completely acclimated house cat.  However, he is still a hisser.  He will hiss when I startle him or if I catch him doing something he shouldn't.  He hisses when he feels cornered or sometimes if I have a big coat on and he doesn't recognize me right away.  That being said, he has never been the least bit aggressive towards me.  Hissing just seems to be something he does.  It doesn't seem to indicate aggression or anger at all, it is just a noise he makes.  I think your cat is doing it because she is nervous so I wouldn't read too much into it.

Ferals or cats (in this case kitten) that have been stray for any length of time are in survival mode. Any chance at all that a human abused or even chased her could cause fear of people. Humans are perceived as predators and remember how huge we are to them. It hasn't even been a week since she was trapped, taken to the vet and then brought to your home. I don't know how your vet clinics are, but the ones I've been to here, there are dogs and cats everywhere. At my previous vet dogs and cats were in cages, all one unit, often dogs right next to cats, or above, below or a mixture of the three. Animals yowling, barking, crying; staff all over, feeding, watering, changing litter or bedding. Think lots of noise and activity, absolutely terrifying to a wild animal. No, it's not that crazy all the time, or even most of the time; but any time at all would be enough to terrify her. Shoot even a cat only and/or very quiet clinic would still be terrifying . At the clinic she was made to sleep and wake up with pain, even meds can't take it all away. Just being groggy makes a wild creature feel vulnerable.  Then transported to another brand new, scary place. All of that in less than a week. 

I want to put all that into your mind to help you see from her point of view. Knowing all that, remember it whenever you feel impatient. Believe me, it helps to make it far easier to be patient when you can see that way! I've had them live behind sofas and under my bed for months. Just have food, water and a litter box close by. Look at it this way, when it takes a long time, it makes the moment they learn to trust you all that much sweeter.

I think cats, kittens, ferals or stray are as different as human children and everything I have read from people here is right, but I will share my experience anyway.

One feral kitten I adopted showed up in my yard when it was just a wee baby barely even weaned... she was soooo tiny.  I couldn't even coax her to come close with food, but she was curious about us all the same.  The kids had a trampoline  (and we had a chair by the trampoline to help the kids climb up and down).  When she got a bit bigger, she would get up and run all over the trampoline and she earned herself the name Bubbles because she was so bubbly.  Our yard sort of became her safe spot even though she wouldn't take food from us.  After several months and when the weather started turning cooler, our two resident cats brought her inside the house where she would hide in the basement during her time indoors, but she would go in and out with the other cats, and she would eat their food with them.  She also either snuck into the littler box or she had really good control over her bodily functions because she did not mess in inappropriate places.  I never trapped her and had her spayed and she wound up pregnant, which I wondered how that was going to go as I wasn't going to have a litter of feral kittens running amok in our home and the momma cat still wouldn't let me get near her!  It came as a very big surprise to me when Bubbles curled up on the sofa next to me one night, and as I cautiously reached over to pet her, I could feel her sides convulsing... my feral kitty was in labor and delivering her kittens practically on my lap!  After that, we were buds.

The current feral/stray cat we have now began hanging around our apartment. I saw a trap / carrier set out for her and initially thought one of my neighbors had lost a cat, so we started calling to her and trying to feed hoping we could get her back to her owner.  We were not the only ones, and there began to appear food dishes outside several doors, and the kitty made our building her new home.  My daughter took a liking to her and started feeding her daily, and the cat came to expect it.  Come to find out, this kitty is pregnant too!  My daughter made friends with her, and after a couple weeks, brought her inside.  We have two resident cats, and she hates them both!  Stray kitty lives in my daughters bedroom with the one kitten she had.  She has been inside for almost a month now, and is no closer to getting along with our resident cats than the day we first brought her in.  She is pretty human friendly by this point though.  She comes running when she hears you because she likes getting fed.  At first, she would eat all the food we gave her in her room (which was a lot since she was supper skinny when she first showed up, and pregnant too).  And everytime we would let her out of my daughters room, she would run over and eat all the resident cats food too... She has stopped doing that, even if she is hungry, she will go sniff it, but will wait to be fed in her bowl.  She hisses a lot.  She growls and gets very aggressive when she catches site or scent of the other cats.  I don't believe she can eat wtihout growling, and if she can, I have yet to see it - but she also does not mind if you pet her while she is eating.  She scares me.  I think she is going to attack me all the time, and yet she still comes and seeks out attention.  Its a really strange world for her.  She knows we are protection, and yet she is scared of us.

I honestly think animals are just like us in that they want to be loved.  I think if you give the kitty time she will come around.  I also think that if you don't want another cat, or if your cat and this cat will not get along, then its better to put her out before she becomes to used to being in.  Thats where we are at with our current feral/stray.  We live in small apartment, we already have two cats and we only wanted to do the right thing by this one... but now we have a cat no one seems to want, who wants to live with us, but wants us to get rid of the other cats so she can be queen bee.  If we turn her over to the shelter, that is another adjustment that could make it harder for her to eventually bond with a family if one is found for her, and we have been caring for her for over a month now, so how is she going to do in another month by the time her kitten is weaned and we get her spayed... wouldn't that be like abandoning her all over again?

It is so good to read about others experiences. I appreciate what has been said about letting her go again and it is not something I  am keen to do,  that she is so young still (maybe 10 months) that to imagine her out there living under the house for the rest of her life just doesn't feel right... reading your comments is so encouraging!  

She is still in the laundry cupboard, on top of the washing machine, which I must admit I am reluctant to use! I have left the door open between the cupboard and the bathroom and this morning she stayed on the washing machine when each of us used the shower... I went in there after work and used the computer  sitting on the floor and she stayed in the same place.. she has been eating only at night when we are in bed, but she had had a nibble at some food this afternoon which is good I think. I was feeling encouraged that she had not gone down the back of the washing machine for the day but  then I had to reach in to get something out of the cupboard! she hissed and disappeared down the back... and it takes her a couple of hours to pluck up the courage to return to her roost... I have been playing her relaxing youtube cat music, but then I read that Harp music is best? I am trying to track down a Feliway dispenser...please keep your comments coming..I will try to get a photo in the next day or two, she is beautiful!

Have you tried softening your eyes at her?  I thought this sounded silly until I tried it myself.  What you do is to make eye contact with her, and then do a slow blink.  It is a gesture that tells her you mean her no harm, and you are not a threat.  If she returns it, it means she also trusts you or is beginning to.  Its a big sign of trust if she is able to go and eat while you are in the room. You could try bringing in some tasty treats like little bits of chicken that you can place between her comfort spot and you to try to draw her closer.  I would also say that if you want to keep her, her natural curiosity is a friend of yours right now.  Try bringing a toy with you and see if you can get her interested in playing.  Being cooped up in that small space, she probably could use a little exercise, and it would take her mind off of being afraid.  I suggest starting with a wand toy if you have one, something on a string that you can move about and try to pique her interest.  As a stray/feral, she has most likely had to chase down her food  -  and now just delivering it to her, there is nothing to satisfy that hunting instinct.  Having something to chase might help her feel more like her old (young) self again. 

I have been trying to get friendly with a feral calico Tom for two years or so. At first he would bolt into the woods when he saw ANY movement inside the house...even though he was outside and a good way off. Gradually his flight response relaxed a little and he would eat food that I put out...but only after it sat for an hour or so. Slowly Callie (the name I gave him when I still thought he was a she!) warmed up to the point that I actually got to touch him. I have another black stray that came around at the same time Callie arrived and they seemed to be friends. The black cat, now named Binks and a member of our household, acted as an "ambassador" to Callie and he would allow me to pet him if Binks was around. It has progressed to the point now that Callie will run over to the kitchen door any time he sees someone heading towards the door, and now seems to enjoy getting petted and is very friendly...usually. Callie is still pretty wild and limits his affections to me...anyone else gets shunned.

   One thing about Callie is his hissing. Callie hissed a lot, especially when he is around someone unfamiliar. He also still hisses at me a lot, especially if you make direct eye contact (although he is getting better!). He will be rubbing all around your feet and ankles, but if you happen to make direct eye contact, even briefly, he hisses. He still enjoys being petted, but he seems confused as to when it is appropriate to hiss and when you shouldn't. Callie is getting better with eye contact, but the slow blink seems to work pretty well if you can get the cat to relax enough to be receptive to the blink...if his eyes are huge with fright, a slow blink won't do much to calm him/her down. I guess what I am saying is that hisses aren't always a terrible thing...sometimes they just hiss because they don't know what else to do.

    Congrats on your hard work in getting your kitty to get settled in. I find that avoiding direct eye contact helps to keep new additions a little more at ease, especially if I'm just walking by. Eventually they learn that you aren't a threat and that you bring home the bacon (or mouse)...then they will begin to look forward to small visits. Gradually increase the time of those small visits and before long you will have another cat that will probably be forever grateful! Good luck...keep us in the loop!

OK I will try the blinking this afternoon! On the positive side ( I keep reminding myself) it IS early days and in 6 days she has been trapped, spayed, moved into a cupboard, is eating daily, drinking and using the dirt box, and is able to remain in fairly close proximity to humans for short periods of time. I have ordered a Feliway from the UK! they are over $100.00 here and I can get one sent from the UK with refills and including postage for under $50.00! I have an adapter already so I can plug it in. It should be here within a few days. I was going to get a photo this morning, but shes down the back of the washing machine... I have put a box ontop of the machine with her bedding to see if I can stop her zooming down the back ... do you think it would be a good idea to cover the back so she cant disappear but still have alternative spots for her to go? there are a few shelves in there I can clear! I have swapped the soil in her dirt box for clay litter so fingers crossed! I really value everyones advice, feral/stray cats are not thought of fondly in NZ as most of or native birds are flightless,  so it is very hard to get support here and I must admit to second guessing myself hour by hour!