that poor cat

[Briar Rose 7457]

I may have mentioned we've been feeding a stray. we named him O'Malley.

we suspect he was a housecat who was abandoned. there is a colony of feral cats at the pond down the street, and we think he's been living with them.

he was hanging out on our deck yesterday and I got a good look at him. poor thing looks like he's been through a war. very skinny, and with very large wounds on the top of his head and on both front legs.


he's very friendly to people, but in recent times he's become more aggressive with our cats.


whoever threw him out to fend for himself didn't do him any favors.

 

[epcotfan]

Poor baby.

 

[grinningghost]

It's never fun to hear sad kitty stories. I hope he's doing better soon.

 

[Harambe]

Can you grab him and turn him over to a "no kill" shelter? He sounds quite adoptable!

 

[katerkat]

I second the adopt-him-out vote! My second cat, Tycho, was a house cat turned stray. (We have a theory he was abandoned when his family moved - he freaked when we started packing.) The person who brought him to the shelter said Tycho had been a stray for about 9 months to a year. It took about a month, but Tycho adjusted right back to being a house cat, and is rarely over-aggressive.

 

[nuke]

In YOUR neighborhood they allow a pack of feral cats to run free?

 

[catsrule]

That poor baby. Thanks for feeding him. Hope he gets all mended.

 

[Briar Rose 7457]

nuke, dear, my back yard borders on a nature preserve. there is a pond 1/4 mile down the road. we've got racoons, possums, bats, fox, owls...a few feral cats blend right in.

 

[Beauty]

Poor baby. My Cinders was rescued off the streets of Memphis and since I've brought her home and gotten her shots and gotten her healthy again she has become the biggest baby of all. She loves to romp and play and be held.

I agree, could you maybe call a no kill shelter? If its friendly perhaps you could get it into a carrier. It does sound very adoptable.

 

[nuke]

Briar Rose, dear, in my area any group of animals, that didn't start out wild to begin with, are trapped before they become a problem. This is dogs especially, but I would guess cats as well.

I just figured on Looong IIIIsland they would do the same.

 

[Briar Rose 7457]

nuke, dear, I have the luxury of 18 acres of pristine woodland in my back yard. the pond down the street takes up about another 10 acres. how do you find the feral cats who live there? and if you do manage to clear them out, how do you keep idiots from dumping more kittens there?

and since the field mouse population seems to have decreased lately ...

 

[Evil Princess]

Originally posted by nuke
I just figured on Looong IIIIsland they would do the same.

No one here pronounces it like that.

Briar Rose, I'm sorry about the cat Will little shelter take him? I've heard great things about that place, though I don't know the details of it.

 

[dcgrumpy]

Why don't you call the Little Shelter

 

[Briar Rose 7457]

lol, Evil Princess. everyone knows it's pronounced "Lawn Guyland", right?

I'lll have to check out Little Shelter, and then see if I can catch O'Malley.

 

[DaisyDebbie]

Originally posted by nuke
In YOUR neighborhood they allow a pack of feral cats to run free?

You'd be surprised at the number of cats running free in ALL neighborhoods. But most are considered "pets" but live outside most of the time. Especially at night

Just because you don't see them in "packs" doesn't mean they are not there

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

We have a terrible problem with cats in our neighborhood, and we don't live near any wilderness areas. They were even using my backyard to have kittens & the fighting at night between the males would keep me up. We finally got a dog to keep the cats out ('cept for our own). My dd was always finding tiny kittens, and would adopt them - since we fed them, the neighbors assumed that they were mine, and I actually had someone ask me to do something about "my" cats because they were pooping in their yards - the neighbors were really upset with me.

My next-door-neighbor bought a cat trap with her own money, and trapped about 10 of them - except for the <s>big</s> huge tomcat - never could catch him. That took care of the problem for a couple of years, but I've been seeing some cats around again, and the neighbor will probably have to start trapping again. I always know when a cat comes on the porch because my own starts screaming.

Good luck with O'Malley, BR.

 

[figmentvi]

Poor baby......I hope you can catch him and take him to a shelter. Good luck.

Reading this thread reminded me of an Animal Cops episode that I watched on Animal Planet this past weekend. A guy living in Detroit was an obsessive cat collecter and had amassed a collection of 247 cats which completely took over his house (he was forced to live in the garage because of the filth). The situation was a horrible, horrible scene from a nightmare. There were cats EVERYWHERE. The house was covered inside from top to bottom with cat urine, feces and fleas. The poor rescue workers had to wear hazmat suits and respirators. The worst part of all was that they had to destroy all 247 cats because they had become feral and could not be rehabilitated to adopt out. I was sick to my stomach. This man needed some SERIOUS physciatric treatment. It was horrible.

 

[Planogirl]

The problem is that people keep dumping cats in wilder areas thinking that they can fend for themselves. When my aunt lived in the country across from a roadside park, they were constantly finding confused cats particularly pregnant females or females with litters. Animal control can trap as best they can but new ones keep being dropped off. I imagine that it's the same thing in the "nature preserve".

I haven't noticed any feral cats in our neighborhood even though we live close to undeveloped land but we always have lots of bunnies. They drive some people crazy because they eat some of their plants but I think that they're cute.

 

[fklhou]

Poor kitty. One of neignbors was telling about some feral cats down the street from us. I have seen some possums and raccoons at night.

 

[Beth E. (NJ)]

OMG - I saw that same episode of Animal Planet too! I can't imagine anyone living in that house. It was atrocious. The cats were everywhere. Remember when the showed them all in the basement? The shined a flashlight down there and you saw the glow from all their eyes.