Stray Care Post-surgery

[Traceymw]

Hello, I’m new to this site and am looking for advice.
I’ve trapped a stray who has been hanging round my house for a few months. I’ve been feeding him twice a day, but not managed to gain his trust. He has scratched me once.
He showed up with an eye injury, so I trapped him and took him to the vets. They couldn’t save his eye, so after discussion, removed it. They fixed him at the same time, found he was FIV+, no chip, and is a young cat (1-2yrs).
I’m picking him up tomorrow to bring him home. He will not be able to be an outside cat anymore. I have a very large dog crate set up initially, with a litter box, bed, food, water and covered, so he can be in one place for now, in a quiet room.
Any advice would be appreciated for his first few days post-surgery and then getting him to trust me.
Thank you!
Tracey.

 

[tabbytom]

Traceymw, welcome to TCS!

Thank you for taking care of this stray kitty and having him looked over by the vet to get his treatment and getting him neutered. So sorry that his eye cannot be saved but at least now he's in safe hands and also that you for giving him a warm and fur-ever loving home

It's great that you have all the necessities set up and that he has a safe room to recuperate.

Have some quite soothing music for him and visit him often and when you go see him, approach him slowly and get down on your fours so that you don't look intimidating to him. Give him a name and keep calling his name and talk softly to him and slowly try to feed him from your hand to gain his trust. Do it several times over the days and weeks ahead.
Have a cat wand and play with him and leave one or two pieces of your clean unwashed garments in the cage so that he'll get familiar with your scents. This way, he'll get to learn to trust you and know that you are the one who cares and feed him.

It is not an overnight thing that he'll trust you completely but it takes time, love, patience and routine. Just don't give up on him.

Caring for a cat in this condition will have a strong bond later. Once he's quite used to you, you may want to leave the cage door opened but make sure the room and house is properly secured and there's no escape route. Also make sure the room have no place for him to hide if you decide to let him out so that he won't be cooped up in the cage that will delay socializing him.

Feel free to ask questions if you any and many experienced members here with such situations will be willing and able to help you answer them.