jaynleng: I know it's almost CADTM but JohnBuck41 got this stuck in my head.

And now it's stuck in my head too...

♫with two cats in the yard♪

Yzziefrog: Good morning Caturday!

I need advice on bringing in a semi-feral cat. This adolscent male (maybe 4-5 months), keeps coming up our front porch, sniffing at our cat through the screen door. He is extremely friendly to humans, even allowing our neighbour's 3-year-old to pick him up. We sit down with him and it's all rubs and purrs.

We'd love to adopt him as an inside cat, we think he'd get along great with our Maya. We tried luring him with food, but it turns out this mini-basement cat (he's all black) is also a 'ho. He left us in the middle of a scritches session because the neighbour across the street came out, he made a beeline to him and started rubbing himself against him as he was weeding. This cat loves EVERYBODY.

We tried to bring in inside the house briefly, and he started climbing the screen door.

This cat does not belong to anyone, we asked around and he's part of the neigbourhood's feral cats' brood. We would love to give him a home and all the love he can get, to keep him safe and healthy.

How can we convince him that inside our house is much better than roaming the streets?

Thanks for any advice you have.

If you're truly serious, you may want to try a 'taming cage' as seen on Neighborhood Cats web site. Link (new window)

Personally, I'd forego the newspaper and use pine pellets for litter (keeps the cage MUCH cleaner).

You can use any permutation thereof, but to spec it's a 2'X 3' footprint and fits nicely atop two adjacent rubbermaid storage containers. Elevating it will help kitty to feel more secure as people will not be towering over him and he won't feel so 'cornered'. Putting the set up cage in a quiet room and draping with a large sheet is key, this will keep him quiet for the initial introduction to the 'indoors'.

Keeping him confined for a couple of weeks will give him time to adjust to the smells and sounds of being indoors. As he adjusts, the drape can be slowly drawn back and the cage moved to a part of the house with more foot traffic. He will slowly realize no harm will come to him inside.

It sounds as though he's very people curious so he has loads of potential, whichever way you go with this best of luck!

This set up is often used for ferals who have medical complications that delay spay/neuter or post surgical return. Keeping it draped really works to promote calm in the wildest of them.

Funny aside: this feral cat, Buddy, had to have his neuter delayed so he went into the taming cage for a course of antibiotics...he'd never seen a litterbox. For the first week he slept in the litterbox and pooped in the carrier. :)



/he caught on eventually

Here is Elena, I got her after Marla passed away on May 19th.

Ricksha Shiksa:

Funny aside: this feral cat, Buddy, had to have his neuter delayed so he went into the taming cage for a course of antibiotics...he'd never seen a litterbox. For the first week he slept in the litterbox and pooped in the carrier. :)



/he caught on eventually

Good Lord, is there some way you can teach my dog the same? He will poop outside and is praised for it every time, but he doesn't seem to "get it" that he has to tell me when he needs to go out. I buy "Nature's Miracle" by the gallon! :(

sorry.... I used up all my booze kittehs :-(

domari: jaynleng: sorry.... I used up all my booze kittehs :-(

I just told Cretinbob we need to take some more booze kitteh photos, I'm running out too.

I have booze, but no kittehs. So sad :(

syzygy whizz, thanks for the tip! I'll definitely check that out some time this week :)

peterthx and Llois, thanks! I was feeling extremely guilty last night, but she is in much better spirits today, she's much more confident with those horrible (IMO) litter pellets. Her paws are responding well to kisses, too.

oh well... this one wasn't on the first page anyway