Caring for stray/abandoned cat

tdanley0906

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I live in an apartment complex and we have several stray/ferel cats around so it's nothing new for us to see new ones come around every now and then but one in particular has been staying on our patio for the past week. He looks less than a yr old and I believe he was abandoned because he's extremely friendly and he's wearing a flea collar. My fiancé and I are considering keeping him as mainly an outside cat, letting him in occasionally, once we get his shots and neutered but I've never heard of anyone having an "outside" cat while living in an apt complex but he stays on our patio 24/7 so I don't see him running off anytime soon. We already have two inside only cats so we aren't able to bring him in at all right now until we get his shots and neutered. I'm not exactly sure how to go about this without possibly scaring off the little guy once we get him taken care of and I don't want to disrupt my other two cats environment. I know cats are very territorial so I don't know where to start with this.
 

Primula

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First, I would get him neutered plus whatever else he requires from the vet. Then, if he stays safely on the patio I think that would be ok. Later on, if you think he could be an indoor cat you could try that. There are hundreds of threads here on how to introduce cats to each other.

So, take him to the vet. He may already be neutered if he was wearing a collar.
 
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catwoman707

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One mention is, waiting to allow him inside until he is vaccinated is no protection for your cats, it is for his protection actually.

As long as yours have had their core vaccines/kitten series, they're protected against URI's or panleukopenia (parvo)

Basically the only thing he might bring in is ringworm, but you would see this on him already unless of course he just came in contact with it.

He needs to be de-flead, an FVRCP vaccine and neutered.

Checked for ear mites.

With slow introductions anyway this will be like the quarrantine period, and I doubt he has anything going on if he appears healthy and was recently owned.

I'd take the collar off too.

He's a lucky kitty. Poor baby.
 

frajude

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About twelve years ago we had two dogs one of whom was a part Rotweiller and he had some issues where he would attack our Border Collie.  We took Miss Kitty to get her shots and neutered.  She ran off after she was released but came back and is still here after  12 years later.  I created an outside haven for her where she has a little house which was warm during the winter.  When the dogs were gone, she had already been an outside cat for about 9 years until some animal wounded her with a large slash across stomach. The vet did surgery on her and since then she has been an inside cat.  Some of the cats chase her if she comes out but there is no major hostility.  There are now 8 (yes I said 8) cats 3 of whom are kittens.  For the most part they all get along and every one of them is either feral or a stray that was abandoned.  I would suggest that you expose your cats to him as much a possible through the door if that is not already happening.  Miss Kitty is actually s loner and I believe that part of the issue with her is that she was never exposed to other cats always staying in the yard or on the grounds. Now she really does not care to integrate herself in the hierarchy.
 
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