I've posted about it before, but I've had this feral girl, Aria, for about two weeks. I'm not the best at judging cat ages, but I think Aria is about one year old. I currently have Aria in a small/medium dog crate with litter and water. I feed her wet food twice a day and give her a little bit of dry in between. Aria does pretty well as far as ferals go. She was already used to humans, though a little skittish, while outside. She will let me pet her, and even came out of her crate the other night and laid against me while I pet her. She has hissed at me but she has never bitten or scratched me, despite having lots of opportunities to do so. She has some comfort in her crate, but I took out her litter box today and she ran off and hid. I managed to get her back into the cage but I know she's still really scared of her surroundings. I sat and pet her for a good while after that and apologized to her.
The shelter owner had said there could be a place for her at the shelter, but essentially wants her to be at an adoptable point once her vet care is finished in three weeks (sitting in laps, and so on) before putting her up for adoption. Like I mentioned, she's done well, but naturally she's still scared. I can work with her for the next year, but I'm not sure I want to keep her. I'd like to continue to do foster work in the near future, and fostering right now along with having my furever baby and Aria has taught my that two adult cats is my limit with the space and time I have.
I'm also discouraged after hearing the doubts of the shelter coordinator I volunteer for and reading some material from alley cat allies. Alley cat allies more or less says that it's more worth it to dedicate the time that would be spent socializing an adult feral to socializing many more feral kittens and TNR many more adults. And it's true, the resources I'm using for her could be used for kittens and fostering.
Her colony is in an okay place. Her an the other cats get food regularly, and have water and small shelters. They have lots of bushes and trees. There are cons though, their area is between two parking lots and threats to call animal control have been made by property owners, though not acted on. There is apparently a way to register feral colonies with the city so that they will not be picked up. The primary caretaker wants to do this, but hasn't looked into it, and I haven't found any info on it yet. The property owners have not made good on that threat for months now, but they have suddenly fixed the sprinklers that are right next to where the feeding area is, so now the food gets soaked. Mind, those sprinklers have not worked for years, but now they have been mysteriously 'fixed.'
So I'm be a little apprehensive to return her until I can figure out how they can be registered with animal control, but property management also made that threat many months ago, and likely because of an argument they had with another caretaker that cares of some ferals half a mile away.
She's in her crate staring at me now. I was really confident about her just a week ago, but now I just have a lot of doubts stirring around in my mind. :/
The shelter owner had said there could be a place for her at the shelter, but essentially wants her to be at an adoptable point once her vet care is finished in three weeks (sitting in laps, and so on) before putting her up for adoption. Like I mentioned, she's done well, but naturally she's still scared. I can work with her for the next year, but I'm not sure I want to keep her. I'd like to continue to do foster work in the near future, and fostering right now along with having my furever baby and Aria has taught my that two adult cats is my limit with the space and time I have.
I'm also discouraged after hearing the doubts of the shelter coordinator I volunteer for and reading some material from alley cat allies. Alley cat allies more or less says that it's more worth it to dedicate the time that would be spent socializing an adult feral to socializing many more feral kittens and TNR many more adults. And it's true, the resources I'm using for her could be used for kittens and fostering.
Her colony is in an okay place. Her an the other cats get food regularly, and have water and small shelters. They have lots of bushes and trees. There are cons though, their area is between two parking lots and threats to call animal control have been made by property owners, though not acted on. There is apparently a way to register feral colonies with the city so that they will not be picked up. The primary caretaker wants to do this, but hasn't looked into it, and I haven't found any info on it yet. The property owners have not made good on that threat for months now, but they have suddenly fixed the sprinklers that are right next to where the feeding area is, so now the food gets soaked. Mind, those sprinklers have not worked for years, but now they have been mysteriously 'fixed.'
So I'm be a little apprehensive to return her until I can figure out how they can be registered with animal control, but property management also made that threat many months ago, and likely because of an argument they had with another caretaker that cares of some ferals half a mile away.
She's in her crate staring at me now. I was really confident about her just a week ago, but now I just have a lot of doubts stirring around in my mind. :/