This is Not My Cat (Max). He lives next door and has always regularly popped in (with his owner's permission) when his they are out and/or their house is on fire.
Literally. I opened the door to him one day and as he strolled past, I heard alarms/saw smoke and rang the fire brigade. Still half convinced Max was trying to kill their dog /2
Neither my wife nor I are cat thieves. But there are two MILLION stray and feral cats in the UK, most unneutered and most in London. Walthamstow (where we live) is a hotspot for this.
Her behaviour and desperate state worried us. We spoke to
Cats Protection. They talked us through obvious signs/checks we could do to see if she was feral. If so, they'd try to help us at least get her neutered. /4
The problem: she was UTTERLY TERRIFIED of people. Whilst this suggested she was a full feral, and had probably been born wild, it also meant she ran at any approach.
But eventually, as she got even thinner and saw us giving the odd snack to Not My Cat, she clearly reached a point where she decided she needed to be brave and trust someone.
I really, really can't overstate how suspicious Also Not My Cat was of people.
Again, we're not in the habit of feeding random cats (and you shouldn't be either) but she was so thin, and hungry that we put a plate down for her with a bit of tuna on it.
She came back.
By then we had some young-cat-friendly biscuit. /6
Over the next few months, we managed to persuade her to properly cross the threshold into the house (just about) to get food. This also meant we could chip scan her (Cats Protection lent us a scanner) and get posters up in the area. The lack of response confirmed she wasn't owned. /7
As winter approached, we became increasingly worried about her. Ferals have a life expectancy of barely two years it's tough out there.
I put a cardboard box with one of my hoodies in it next to the door and eventually, as long as we left the door open a bit and stayed right on the other side of the room, she'd sit in it. /9
Every night she would sleep in the kennel, eating twice a day. We talked with Cats Protection about trapping her so they could shelter and hopefully rehome, but it didn't seem likely any time soon.
But then in January 2022 she started limping. We had to act.
With effort, we managed to get her to start eating food from within a trap when she came in. Eventually, we triggered it
She looked so betrayed. But it meant they could get her to a vet. We agreed to foster her in our spare room after /11
I say "with effort" because Not My Cat was not one to pass up free food.
We caught HIM about five times before we managed to catch her. Each time he looked at up at us from within the cage, afterwards, with a look that said:
A big revelation from the vet trip was that 'she' was actually a 'he'! Just a very tiny, underdeveloped and malnourished one. Probably only a year old.
I won't lie: fostering Also Not My Cat after the vet trip was REALLY hard.
There was pooping until he worked out the soil tray.
There was hiding under the bed.
There was a LOT of cardboard tearing and mess. /13
Cats Protection had asked us to keep him in for AT LEAST two weeks after neutering, ideally more, before releasing him as there just wasn't a permanent home available.
Once he finally mastered the litter tray, we decided to let him roam the house at least.
And that's when he jumped on the bed in our room and discovered...
But he still wanted to go out. Really badly. So eventually, we knew we had to let him go. At least he was neutered now, had his vaccines and was chipped to Cats Protection
As spring arrived, we opened the patio door. He took a quick look back, and then darted away over the fence.
We thought that was the last we'd see of him. Thinking maybe, at best, he'd hang around in his little kennel again and pop in for food.
@garius What a wonderful, uplifting story, and the photos are great.
I adopted a feral cat years ago. I saw what I thought was an odd looking black squirrel when I realized it was a small, few-months old malnourished cat. Wouldn't let anyone near. I started leaving food out daily and stayed at a distance to watch her eat it. Gradually she got used to me being there. Each day I moved slightly closer. One day she let me touch her before she took off. Moved the dish to an open, screenless kitchen window. One warm day when she saw the backdoor was open she rain through the window and out the back door - her first visit indoors.
She started letting me pat her, and eventually started spending a bit more time in the kitchen. She let me pick her up, and even started sleeping on my bed at night which, at first, she accessed through the bedroom window. She got quite affectionate-- but not with the housemates who she was merely polite with and kept a distance from.
Then she dropped 3 kittens in the kitchen cupboard -- turns out she was pregnant the whole time (2 didn't survive after a few weeks, she'd been so malnourished). Around this time managed to finally get her and the kittens to a vet.
Anyway, she turned into a wonderful companion and was an interesting, very smart cat.
Eventually I found out a neighbor had been given her as a gift when she was fluff ball. But he hated cats, so he put her out in the laneway to fen for herself and really didn't care what happened to her.
Tamed feral cats are special. They seem more clever, and seem more appreciative of indoor comforts.
@garius Bosco was also a Walthamstow feral. I knew we’d domesticated him when he came out from hiding in the middle of the night, jumped onto the bed, put his head in my hand and fell asleep. There’s nothing like a rescued feral who realises how good life just got.
It’s me the first time I didn’t feel depressed when I was like 22. The lack of dread and doom scared me. How could things be OK? How could nothing be wrong?
@garius#Pica was also a street kitten and she is very small to this day since I think she had a hard time early on. After 15 years she’s all personality and in charge of everything. Pica is the boss. And she deserves it. She weighs 6lbs and is smaller than a soccer ball
@futurebird@garius of course! Because she’s a queen! Whereas Speedbump here will just give me this look & I know I need to pet her. Or she thinks whatever I’m listening to is annoying.
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