Mr Wendall and His Stray Cats

Greetings friends,

It's been such a long time since I've been here interacting with you all. Before I get to the purpose of my thread I just want to let you all know that I STILL have my Brownie-kins and she's STILL just as spoiled as ever.

Now, as for my dilemma; Over the weekend my 10 year old son and his 8 year old friend came across an emaciated yet sweet and friendly stray cat. The cat seems to have made a home for itself on the front porch of an abandoned house half a block down the street from where I live. The house is on the same street as my house. The cat is a grey tabby and actually looks quite a bit like my Brownie. It has a collar but does not have a name tag. I just learned a couple of days ago that the elderly lady who lived in that [now] abandoned house had passed away close to 2 months ago.

I don't have any proof or confirmation of this but my theory is that this cat was perhaps owned by the elderly lady who used to live in that house and maybe the cat is sticking close to what used to be home. So twice a day (once in the morning and once at night) I would go over to that house and feed the cat. I would also sit there to keep it company and to make sure that it wouldn't get bullied out of it's food by one of the "REAL" street cats on the block. It is so emaciated that I can see it's rib cage and I can feel it's spine when I rub it's back.

Well my Brownie is an indoor/outdoor cat (which I actually don't like. I want to make her into a strict house cat if I can). Anyway, Brownie was outside earlier today and I had some of the kids on my street running around near my house saying "Here kitty, come here kitty". And they had their pitbull puppy with them as they are doing this. I'm thinking to myself "these kids better not be out there menacing my Brownie". I open up my front door and go outside and it's the stray cat from up the street. It was on the side of my house. It looked scared due to the rowdy activities of those kids harassing it. When it saw me it IMMEDIATELY ran up to me and cuddled behind me and slightly underneath my legs. The kids asked me if it is my cat and I told them not yet but I plan to make it mine.

As I walked back into my house this cat followed me inside. I gave it food and water and just as I was about to let it back outside it started pouring down raining along with thunder so I knew I couldn't put it outside in those conditions.

So anyway, it is still in my house as I type this. It's asleep in my living room. I have a Japanese divider that I put between my living room (where the stray cat is) and my dining room which leads to the rest of the house. I did that because Brownie is back inside and I know that I have to keep these two separate from each other until I can figure out what's going on. The first thing I'm going to do is take some pictures and circulate them among the local lost & found pets circles just in case it doesn't belong to the deceased lady from down the street. If nothing turns up then I am actually 97% sure that I am going to adopt it and keep it.

I have some questions though. Although the cat is kind of emaciated (for now, I'll fatten it up with nourishment and lots of love), it's still bigger than my Brownie; at least slightly, but noticeably none-the-less. Is this always an indication that it might be a male? I still couldn't get a good enough view to determine it's sex. Also, my Brownie-kins has a kind of drooping stomach ever since she's been spayed. This cat seems to have the same thing...a drooping, pouch looking stomach. If it's already "fixed" does the drooping stomach mean that it's a female and was spayed? Do male cats also get the drooping stomach after being neutered?

I wouldn't mind at all adopting and keeping this cat. It came in my house and made itself right at home. Before finally going to sleep it's been rubbing up against me and giving me all sorts of the signature cat head bunts. Oh, before I forget it also peed in Brownie's litter box. I didn't like that at all. I had a spare litter box that I cleaned and filled with litter just for this cat so it stay out of Brownie's litter box. But how awesome would it be if it's a male cat and it's already neutered? Talk about a gift from the heavens. What say ye fellow cat lovers?

Lastly, notice the title of this thread....Mr Wendall and his stray catS (plural). The appearance of this new stray complicates an already existing situation that I have with some other stray cats that I've been feeding for about 2 weeks now. It's a family of feral kittens (5 of them) and their parents. That's another story and a pretty long one which I hope to explain in another post later in this thread. I don't want to make two separate threads since it is one overall situation I've gotten myself into.

Much Love u guys and Thanks in advance for whatever feedback, guidance and advice you can offer.

Thanks for saving her from the neighborhood kids with the pit bull puppy.  I think she should stay inside with you.  Step one is to take her or him to a vet and have him or her checked over, dewormed and vaccinated.  The next step is to put him/her on a good nourishing diet of canned food fed 3-4 times daily (don't let her overeat because she's underweight).  I think you are right, she lived at that house and the older lady passed away, leaving her an orphan.  She is not feral, she ran to you for protection.  I wouldn't look very hard for her to have another owner.  If you keep her in and she does belong to someone else, then anyone who cares will be posting signs by the third day she is missing.  If not, then they don't care enough, so they will not be seeing her again.  The welfare of the cat is more important than the welfare of a former owner who doesn't care enough to post signs.  That happens a lot here in Georgia, especially in the country.  If someone dies, they take the dog to the pound ut just put the cat out.  People think cats can survive on their own, not realizing that if they werent raised feral, they are just house cats left outside to starve.  Many of our rescues have come to us that way.  So congratulations on your new family member.  Now you can't very well let her out because if you found her killed by a dog now, it would break your heart. 

To continue from my opening post,

I have been feeding a stray cat for about 2 years now. I actually think it's been slightly longer than 2 years. He's a huge and muscular grey tabby with black stripes that we call Tom. Tom has impregnated Brownie before we got her spayed.

But long story short Tom shows up at my back door like he always does making his usual "I'm here, please feed me" meows when I opened my back door and to my surprise he has a kitten with him. An adorable orange and white kitten with an adorable little meow. It looked to be about eight weeks old. I fed them both and they ate their food together.

The next day Tom shows up again and just like the day before he has the orange and white kitten with him....along with a second kitten. This one is beige and white with almost the same pattern as the orange and white one. The third day, a smokey grey kitten accompanies Tom and the first two kittens and on the fourth day a tuxedo kitten and a kitten that we call Little Tom completed the picture. Five kittens total. After feeding all five of them as well as Tom for a few days the kittens' mother started coming over to get her chow on too. We know it's their mom because she had a litter of kittens on the side of my house a few years ago. A beautiful tortie with a white spot on her nose.

My dilemma with this batch is that my wife and I would like to take the kittens to the shelter so they can be fixed and adopted. But this family appears to be a happy family. Tom really surprised me with how he interacts with these kittens of his. They always eat together and I've seen him on more than one occasion do the head bunt thingy with the little ones.

So I don't know if I should go with my original plan to catch the kittens and take them to the animal place to be adopted or if I should TNR the whole family and allow them to stay together.

As far as why Tom would do this; well my wife has a theory about this....

Exactly one week before Tom bought the first kitten over to my house he was on my back porch one late night eating. Before I can even shut the door to call it a night after giving Tom his food, a really badly mangled stray cat made his way to my porch and let out a very weak but long cry out for help. I do not want to describe the injuries it had and how badly mangled it was but I will say that he couldn't have sustained those injuries from a cat fight. No cat is capable of doing that kind of severe damage.

But Tom growled at first and I told Tom to shut up. I made that stray cat some food and gave him some water. I got some old clothes and folded them in a huge cardboard box which the stray cat gladly made his way into and he spent the night there. I checked up on the poor guy for most of the night and got very little sleep because of it.

The following morning I gave it more food and a fresh bowl of water. Not too long after I did that I went to check up on it. I noticed Tom lurking back there. Before I can say or do anything Tom looked into the box and sniffed in it. Then he sniffed the plate of food that was sitting just outside the box and then left without touching that food. I never had the chance to make Tom something to eat. A couple of hours after that (right before I took the stray to the vet) Tom came back and did the SAME THING! He peeked into the box, sniffed the stray cat's plate of food and simply left.

Sadly, the cat could not be saved so I paid to have him euthanized and I sat by his side the entire time. The damage done by whatever did that too him was too much. But my wife seems to think that Tom picked up on what I did for that cat and surmised that he can bring his family around for me to feed and take care of. I really don't know what to say to that. But anyway, that's the story with Tom and his family. That guy is something else. Well played Tom, well played.

And before I forget I let that stray cat from the abandoned house back outside. He wanted to go back out (I wanted him to stay as he is such a sweet guy). For a brief moment he and Brownie came face to face as he was making his way out the door. I said he was slightly bigger than Brownie. I was wrong. He's actually significantly and noticeably bigger than Brownie even while emaciated. I'm quite certain it's a male or one of the biggest female cats I've ever seen.

Red Top Rescue said:

 
Thanks for saving her from the neighborhood kids with the pit bull puppy.  I think she should stay inside with you.  Step one is to take her or him to a vet and have him or her checked over, dewormed and vaccinated.  The next step is to put him/her on a good nourishing diet of canned food fed 3-4 times daily (don't let her overeat because she's underweight).  I think you are right, she lived at that house and the older lady passed away, leaving her an orphan.  She is not feral, she ran to you for protection.  I wouldn't look very hard for her to have another owner.  If you keep her in and she does belong to someone else, then anyone who cares will be posting signs by the third day she is missing.  If not, then they don't care enough, so they will not be seeing her again.  The welfare of the cat is more important than the welfare of a former owner who doesn't care enough to post signs.  That happens a lot here in Georgia, especially in the country.  If someone dies, they take the dog to the pound ut just put the cat out.  People think cats can survive on their own, not realizing that if they werent raised feral, they are just house cats left outside to starve.  Many of our rescues have come to us that way.  So congratulations on your new family member.  Now you can't very well let her out because if you found her killed by a dog now, it would break your heart. 

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Thank You RTR.

Yeah, I have made up my mind that I want to keep him. He is in my house sleeping like a baby right now. He's such a sweet, adorable and well mannered guy. What's not to like? And I'm hoping that he's already neutered. He hasn't sprayed at all and he's twice used the litter box that I set up for him.

My two challenges right now are keeping him separated from Brownie until I take him to the vet to get checked out and introducing them to each other once he has a clean bill of health. And there is always a chance that he and Brownie may already be familiar with each other since Brownie likes to be outdoors whenever we have warm weather (which I really don't like btw, I'd rather she'd be a 365 indoor cat).

  Kudos to your wife & you for looking out for those kitties! My backyard's ferals do have colonies that include not only family members but introduced kitties as well. Once they are neutered & vaccinated, provided they have adequate shelter and food, they can have very satisfying lives.

It may be that you will be able to tame the kittens, or at least some of them; our shelter will work with them if they enter at least semi-tame, otherwise, they are disposed of. Also, the kittens need to be 6 weeks or older or they, also, will be destroyed.  On the other hand, kittens have a much higher adoption rate than older kitties....decisions, decisions, eh?

I know that my opinion about ferals may differ from many others and I do prefer that cats be indoors-only. However, I have had 2 very, very dear kitties who were indoors-only, who always longed to get to be outside & do "cat stuff", and, despite my best efforts, had to be "put down" in early adulthood, one for cancer and the other for "manx-syndrome", and one of my worst regrets were that I lost them anyway and they didn't have the freedom of the ferals who have now lived 3X as long.

I think you can tame the kittens, given a little time, and maybe you can place them in loving homes, one baby at a time.  You can also TNR them (start with mama cat) and have your own little TNR colony there.  They do eventually hold their own ground and you wont be getting new males and females and kittens there.  I can't take any baby or adult to any shelter, even no kill ones. I have to adopt them out myself, have some control as to who I pick, have good chemistry withthe people, or I could never rest.  Also, I always have the meet & greet at the potential adopter's house.  I did that with the cat who moved her four kittens here when they were just about the age your group is.  I still have the mom, ten years later.  Of course she is spayed now, and that was the last litter of kittens she had.  I do think the moms will strat bringing kittens to what they deem to be a sfae house when the kittens are getting big enough to be hard to feed and the mom cat has experience with human slaves.  "Come over here, dear, and let them see you, and then they will put out good food." 

Red Top Rescue said:

 
I think you can tame the kittens, given a little time, and maybe you can place them in loving homes, one baby at a time.  You can also TNR them (start with mama cat) and have your own little TNR colony there.  They do eventually hold their own ground and you wont be getting new males and females and kittens there.  I can't take any baby or adult to any shelter, even no kill ones. I have to adopt them out myself, have some control as to who I pick, have good chemistry withthe people, or I could never rest.  Also, I always have the meet & greet at the potential adopter's house.  I did that with the cat who moved her four kittens here when they were just about the age your group is.  I still have the mom, ten years later.  Of course she is spayed now, and that was the last litter of kittens she had.  I do think the moms will strat bringing kittens to what they deem to be a sfae house when the kittens are getting big enough to be hard to feed and the mom cat has experience with human slaves.  "Come over here, dear, and let them see you, and then they will put out good food." 

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Thanks RTR for the advice.

Hhmmmm......meet and greet and choose who I will allow to adopt them. Never considered that BUT it will definitely help me sleep and breathe easier knowing that I placed them in good homes and got a feel of the adopters.

Oh yeah...

"Come over here, dear, and let them see you, and then they will put out good food."

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Yep, this is EXACTLY how they snared me.