Feral tom and litter box

lindarose

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We rescued a feral cat 3 months ago (trapped). We live in a rural area so he has had to protect himself from many predators.   He has been resident in downstairs bathroom. Read somewhere to make many trips with small amounts of food to get trust. (Best advice ever).  His safe place has been in the tub and under blanket.  We've made huge progress where I can pet him in tub but circumstances have to be perfect. I drop corner of blanket over side of tub and he slides under against the tub and cannot see my hand lowering onto his head.  When I get my hand onto his head and start scratching he's fine.  He relaxes and lets me pet.......but if he rolls onto his side and sees my hand sometimes spooks him and he swats.

 Have made huge progress and 2 months in he started playing with toys hanging from strings.  (This is how we discovered he was boy........when he rolled onto his back playing).

Has been using the litter box no problem from day one.  A few weeks ago we decided to leave the door open into a hallway/foyer (restricted area) where he can't go to any other area of the house.  Over these two weeks he ventures a little farther into the hallway and has just begun to come into the foyer where there are windows.  We usually monitor him and encourage him to come out.  Last night we left his door open so he could explore this limited area on his own.  This morning we found that he peed on a mat by the door leading to the outside instead of using litter box in bathroom he has been using for the past 3 months.

We wondered if the mat had outside smells on it and he thought this was a form of litter box?  Also, we are considering keeping this fellow (you form quite a bond when working this closely with an animal day after day)......however, we have a male cat who was also a stray that we took in.  When the feral cat was outside our cat and him had some nasty encounters.  We are worried that there could be problems trying to get these two to live together.

We will certainly get the feral neutured whether we keep him or not.  Any suggestions on the litter problem and getting two cats to get along.....under our circumstances?
 

Primula

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With regard to the peeing problem, sounds like he was marking his territory since the mat was near an outside door. You need to nip this behavior in the bud & this is one of the reasons to get him neutered. Stat.

I don't have time now to help you with 2 cats meeting & getting along, but there are hundreds of threads here in the topic.
 

shadowsrescue

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Get him neutered ASAP.  He will continue to mark his territory and the stench of tom cat pee is not pretty.  Before he should meet your other kitty, he will also need to be vaccinated as well as tests for FIV  and FELV.  Once the neuter is complete it will take 3-6 weeks for the hormones to completely shut down.  I would not start any introductions until after the neuter.  The longer you wait, the harder it will be to control the markings.

Thank you for rescuing him.  Working with feral kitties is so very rewarding.  You are an angel to him.
 
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lindarose

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Thank you for the advice.  When we trapped him we did not know the level of "Feral" in him. It was minus 30 degrees C and he would have surely died.   We chose not to take him to the vet immediately because we would have had to transport him in the trap.  As it sits right now, we will not give him "free reign" at night, to be sure he's using his litter box.  However, he has made huge progress and we will be taking him into the vet as soon as we can get him into a carrier for transport.  This is dicey at the moment as he is especially leery since he was trapped (We are still working on trust with him). We won't introduce him to our other male cat until he is neutured.

These past 3 months has required dedication and endless amounts of patience..........day by day we are making progress.  Again, thank you for your response.
 

Primula

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Thank you for the advice.  When we trapped him we did not know the level of "Feral" in him. It was minus 30 degrees C and he would have surely died.   We chose not to take him to the vet immediately because we would have had to transport him in the trap.  As it sits right now, we will not give him "free reign" at night, to be sure he's using his litter box.  However, he has made huge progress and we will be taking him into the vet as soon as we can get him into a carrier for transport.  This is dicey at the moment as he is especially leery since he was trapped (We are still working on trust with him). We won't introduce him to our other male cat until he is neutured.
These past 3 months has required dedication and endless amounts of patience..........day by day we are making progress.  Again, thank you for your response.
Put the cat carrier in his space & leave it open. By the time he goes to the vet he will probably be going in & out of his carrier & be comfortable with traveling in it.
 
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