We live on a street in a small Upstate NY city that may best be described as urban Appalachia.
There are feral cat colonies about two blocks away from us, one living under an auto repair shop, the other under a sprawling, ancient state prison.
Our section of the street is a bit more orderly -- a few middle class homeowners mixed in with the renters; lots of nice big backyards.
Throughout the neighborhood, including right around our house, the cat concentration is astounding.
Cats peer out of most of the windows, and multiple cats prowl the yards, some seemingly well cared for, others not. Several have gunky, runny eyes. Many have tried to latch on to my wife and I. She's a cat lover. I like cats, but because of allergies, I like to keep my distance and have kept our home cat free. We've feed a few over the years, but not regularly. I've never been tempted to let her bring one in.
Then, two weeks ago, a scrawny, "kitten" appeared on our porch without tags or a collar and we both felt that it looked desperate. We started to feed it, at first table scraps, now cat food from the store.
My wife thinks the cat might be older than we thought. She says she can feel its mameries, is convinced it is a female, and thinks it is even possible that it has had a litter. It can't be very old, though. It has put on a pound or two (although is still a very slight cat) since we started feeding it. It now spends all its time on our porch. We feed it the recommend amount once a day and nothing more. It is very affectionate -- no bitting or scratching -- and it wants to be pet.
OK, so, the options:
1) We continue feeding the cat but leave it outside and accept no other responsibility for it. (It's cold up here, and we just bought this cat, which we've named Tyra - it kind of looks like a girl Tigger - a cat "shelter," but I wonder how it would survive the winter.)
2) We take more responsibility -- take it the vet, get it vacinated, fixed, make sure it doesn't have real owners in the 'hood, etc. -- but continue to try to have it be an outdoor cat. (Is that possible in this climate? How much would the vet fees be? Would the other cats in this neighborhood just make it sick again?)
3) We make it a proper indoor cat. (As affectionate as this cat is, does a cat that has lived a stray's life really want to be confined indoors? And, again, how much for the vet?)
4) We call the local ASPCA, which is inundated with cats.
Advice would be wonderful. I love this cat, but just don't know what I am in for if I take it on.
There are feral cat colonies about two blocks away from us, one living under an auto repair shop, the other under a sprawling, ancient state prison.
Our section of the street is a bit more orderly -- a few middle class homeowners mixed in with the renters; lots of nice big backyards.
Throughout the neighborhood, including right around our house, the cat concentration is astounding.
Cats peer out of most of the windows, and multiple cats prowl the yards, some seemingly well cared for, others not. Several have gunky, runny eyes. Many have tried to latch on to my wife and I. She's a cat lover. I like cats, but because of allergies, I like to keep my distance and have kept our home cat free. We've feed a few over the years, but not regularly. I've never been tempted to let her bring one in.
Then, two weeks ago, a scrawny, "kitten" appeared on our porch without tags or a collar and we both felt that it looked desperate. We started to feed it, at first table scraps, now cat food from the store.
My wife thinks the cat might be older than we thought. She says she can feel its mameries, is convinced it is a female, and thinks it is even possible that it has had a litter. It can't be very old, though. It has put on a pound or two (although is still a very slight cat) since we started feeding it. It now spends all its time on our porch. We feed it the recommend amount once a day and nothing more. It is very affectionate -- no bitting or scratching -- and it wants to be pet.
OK, so, the options:
1) We continue feeding the cat but leave it outside and accept no other responsibility for it. (It's cold up here, and we just bought this cat, which we've named Tyra - it kind of looks like a girl Tigger - a cat "shelter," but I wonder how it would survive the winter.)
2) We take more responsibility -- take it the vet, get it vacinated, fixed, make sure it doesn't have real owners in the 'hood, etc. -- but continue to try to have it be an outdoor cat. (Is that possible in this climate? How much would the vet fees be? Would the other cats in this neighborhood just make it sick again?)
3) We make it a proper indoor cat. (As affectionate as this cat is, does a cat that has lived a stray's life really want to be confined indoors? And, again, how much for the vet?)
4) We call the local ASPCA, which is inundated with cats.
Advice would be wonderful. I love this cat, but just don't know what I am in for if I take it on.