The cat...He's baaaaack.

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I have been feeding some ferel cats at work. We started getting complaints from other businesses. The cats get locked inside the shops and set the alarms off in the middle of the night. Other times they peed in a customers car etc.

I was told to get rid of them. I really hate to but I had no choice. These are not nice house cats.

I brought a trap to work. I got one of the males. He has an easily identifyable mark.

We took him to the pound. They told us he will get 3 days to calm down. After that he would be destroyed.

I was crying when we left him.

Tonight 3 weeks later I stopped by the shop to get something and figured I should put some food out for them.

Opened the back door and I was greeted by the cat we took to the pound!

My only guess is that he must have escaped when someone opened his cage.
 
Get him / her fixed, (spam, neuter, release), they will calm down in a month or so.

Had two feral toms hanging around my Dads back porch. Caught them, Vet fixed them, I released them back on the porch, both turn over and let you rub the stomachs now.
 
IF you keep them vaccinated then not so much of a problem. But keeping feral cats around is a risk for rabies as well as other things like Feline leukemia, parvo etc. Not to mention the fleas that go with them in the summer. Un-neutered, they will pee all over everything and it will stink, they will fight and squall all night unless neutered. A few cats will soon be 40 cats. If you dont want to treat all this then don't start feeding them at all.
 
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See if you can get it spayed so it calms down and maybe you can domesticate it and it can turn into a shop cat, then it won't pee in cars.
 
Around here if the cat is not a known neighbors cat it gets relocated. Behind the pond.
 
Today, when I got back home, the neighbor's cat cornered me, and began slinking around my feet, mewling like crazy. I had an immediate panic attack. I'm not sure how I made it inside without the cat forcing its way in. Cats will be my downfall.

hotwheels
 
If he made that much of an effort to get back to you, I'd get him fixed and make a pet out of him...he kinda earned it!
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
If he made that much of an effort to get back to you, I'd get him fixed and make a pet out of him...he kinda earned it!


^^This!!
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That cat trusts you and knows you take care of him.
 
Neuter and release - they are territorial, although they will share territory. Neutered females stops the toms muscling into territory and having fights. It all works pretty well with a community of neutered cats....until the next lot move in.
 
Like silk said, they've found in Oz that if they remove the tom, then they have a turf war, and breeding competition. Neuter him, and he's still the top cat, and number drop markedly.
 
I have no time for feral cats with all the stink, noise and sickness that they carry. Have you ever seen some of the horrible infections they can give you from a bite? THey all get lead poisoning for some reason around here.
 
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Originally Posted By: addyguy
If he made that much of an effort to get back to you, I'd get him fixed and make a pet out of him...he kinda earned it!


^^This!!
thumbsup2.gif
That cat trusts you and knows you take care of him.


Agreed! If you don't adopt him, TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) is the way to go. They will multiply!!
 
They are almost impossible to domesticate. Even if you get them very young it takes forever to get them to act like a normal cat for some reason.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
They are almost impossible to domesticate. Even if you get them very young it takes forever to get them to act like a normal cat for some reason.


Unfortunately, in my experience Al is right - a feral cat is almost impossible to tame and make a reasonable house pet.

Having had cats my whole life, and occasionally "rescuing" one here and there, I can say this much - getting one that is friendly, personable, lovable and loyal is a complete and total carp shoot. I have had 2 Maine Coons (big orange ones!) that have been amazing pets.
 
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I used to work at a business that had quite a few abandoned buildings that were distanced from the main manufacturing buildings. These buildings had feral cats because a few employees fed them table scraps from home. Some of the employees felt sorry for these cats and started to feed them bagged cat food. And they really fed them. We are talking about employees who pooled their money and would buy large bags of bulk cat food just to let them eat as much as they wanted. Guess what, pretty soon the feral cat population tripled. It also attracted wild animals.
The practice of feeding the cats stopped when an employee walked through the abandoned buildings and almost got directly sprayed by a skunk. The skunk was actually eating cat food as the uninformed employee walked by. Matter-of-fact, he had to hang his coat outside for about a week to get the skunk smell out of it.
The CEO of the company found out about the feeding of the cats and had it stopped. In this instance, it should have never started.
I hope you find a home for your cat, but a feral cat will seldom become a pet.
 
Chris142

I doubt that cat escaped. He was probably rescued by it's owner.

I have big issues with cat owners that let their cats run free in our neighborhood. Wish I could capture all the excrement from them and splatter it all over the owner's homes.

I consider such cat owners illiterate and uncaring of their neighbors. Want a cat as a pet?...... keep it inside your home. Show your neighbors an ounce of respect.
 
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I would attempt to domesticate him into a shop cat. Keep in caged for a few months and as you feed him, he will grow more fond of you. Get him fixed too.

This is Rockford (from the Rockford Files.) I caught him in a live trap as a feral cat. He was so mean he would growl and would ram his face into the cage to either get out or come after me. For the first few weeks, his face was bloody, but he lighted up and turned into one of our best pets we ever had. He even let our male Newfoundland play with him. He passed away May 2012 sadly from a urinary tract infection.

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The grey and white one is Wheezy (Toy Story 2).. Caught her in a fish net and she spent time in jail in a cage next to Rockford. They became good buddies. She wasnt as wild as Rockford, but she never did like being picked up. She always seemed to have a cold and one summer it got very bad. 2 vets couldnt figure it out so we had her put to sleep.

The white and black one is Ed (Lion King). I found him as a kitten along the road on my way home from school. I put him in my duffle bag and showed the bag to my dad. I told him I had a cat in it and wanted to know what he wanted me to do with him.

All our pets are fixed btw.
 
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