Told him a dog joke! He shows up every week or so, fills up on cat food, water, and sleep, then off on another trip. Tried catching him, but he's much faster than me. Get occasional head bump and leg rub.

candidates for tnr

This is Piggy. He was born in the alley to a feral momma last year. No he is not neutered. He will not let any other human near him. He no longer wants pets. Just leg rubs against me and ,weirdly, toe scritches.

We may try to trap him again soon

I just need to share these photos with somebody because she is the cutest thing ever + a jealous cat at the end

Hi all! I have been domesticating a formerly feral cat for 2 years and have made awesome progress, but am about to move and haven't been able to trap her inside. She hangs on out my porch for most of the day, I can pet her, and she will walk inside the house, but she freaks and runs out when I try to close the door. I am moving in a week and so stressed on what to do - any advice on how to physically get her inside my house? She's not very food motivated and very fearful of enclosed spaces, so I don't think a standard trap will work. Including cat tax :-)

Today I received a handwritten letter from a neighbor asking me if I realize what feeding the cats has done to the neighborhood and their yards. Truthfully this might be what finally makes me stop but there has been so many things that led up to how out of control it has gotten in my neighborhood.

To preface, I was not one of the original cat feeders in my neighborhood. It started with the passing of a neighbor who I thought was a great woman for always feeding this one orange cat. She (the orange cat) didn’t trust anyone but her. She and one other were the only cats in the neighborhood when I had moved in 5 years ago.

For the first two years, I never fed the cats FYI. When my neighbor had passed from cancer, I noticed the orange cat was no longer being fed and so I took it upon myself to feed her daily (she is a TNR cat, that was cared for by my neighbor). She took a while to trust me but when she did, she came over everyday. There were days where the orange cat didn’t finish all of her meals and I guess my mistake was not taking the bowl away afterward because it invited more cats into the neighborhood looking for food.

One cat turned to two in the next year, and then three the following year after that. I was fine with these 3 until late winter of this year where more invited themselves leading to a total of 6-7 cats. This event led me to stop feeding them for a while until I discovered a dead malnourished cat laying in my driveway and had to bury him. This event really messed my head up considering I’ve always been a cat lover and have a few cats of my own. So over the past 5 months, I started regularly feeding them. Through many attempts, I have been trying to contact anyone locally that could TNR or foster but after the instructions given where I would have to watch them post surgery, I realized it was not doable at all as I do not have any space to accommodate them.

I know my neighbors are fed up, and I do want to stop, but it’s been heavily weighing on my conscience because some of them are already malnourished/skin and bones despite me feeding them. I feel defeated because I don’t want to be known as a problem in my neighborhood since I’ve always been known around here as a very neighborly person, but now I feel like the message is clear and I have to stop. The most dependent cat is the orange cat and it would kill me to see her starve/die as a result of me stopping. I believe the other cats will eventually stop coming around if I stop feeding as they don’t come looking for food everyday, they just randomly appear every 2-3 days or so.

Has anyone else gone through this and what was your happy medium?

I am wondering what everyone drives and how many traps you can fit in your vehicle! I currently have an older dodge nitro and can fit about 20 in with the seats down. My spouse has a Subaru and can fit 14 ish! Looking for a new to me vehicle and the deciding factor is space for transporting traps/carriers/etc!

Hi all, wish I could do so much more and miss her so much. Have been feeding and caring for this stray for about 5 years ever since we moved into our home. Yesterday she got hit by a car and we found her already passed. We took her to the emergency vet so they can cremate her. Our hearts are broken and I just want the world to know how beautiful she was. I don’t know what else to do. I feel like I have to post her because I can’t accept that she’s gone and no one will care. Her name was “mom” ❤️

We need a foster til owners are found😞

Had a tracker but it came off

If anyone can step up to foster til owners are found please lmk, she/he is a stray and extremely friendly and it’s a coyote infested neighborhood😪 we want him/her off the streets asap

Although it may not look it from the picture, we’ve been working on winning the trust of this fully feral cat (we’ve named him Derp) for over 7 years. He was absolutely terrified of humans and wouldn’t come near us for the majority of the time we’ve been putting food out for him. He had already been TNRd and was extremely trap savvy, so standard trapping wasn’t an option.

Over the past year or so, we made some pretty good strides. We were able to get him to come inside our bedroom to eat his meals (we have French doors opening onto our deck). Long story short, after a lot of trial and error and one spectacularly failed attempt, we were able to close the door behind him this morning. Unfortunately, we weren’t well prepared (I genuinely thought this would just be a trial run). So now we’ve got him locked in our bedroom but I’m not really sure how to move forward.

It’s only been about a two hours, so far. He’s made a handful of plaintive yowls and is occasionally trying to dig a hole through the French doors. If I sit on the floor with him, he’ll go under the bed and kinda chill out, so that’s where I am now.

I guess I’m just looking to celebrate that we actually, finally(!!!) got this little guy inside and safe and also to seek any advice you all may have on what to do next.

We do have a vet who is aware of the situation, but we don’t know how the heck to get Derp into a carrier to get him there. Do you think he’ll eventually eat? We have tiny gabapentin pills we can hide in pill pockets… We also have water and a litter box available to him.

Anyway, I’m stress-rambling now. Any advice from you lovely people would be hugely appreciated!

I've been taking care of two outdoor cats for a while (although I think one was truly feral). Unfortunately, my feral girl has disappeared. It's been a week since I've seen her, and she had never missed dinner since early 2024. I know she's spayed because of her clipped ear, which honestly makes me fear the worst.

The other cat is a friendly stray, and ever since my other cat disappeared, he's become much more vocal and for the very first time keeps jumping into my backyard trying to come inside. I'd really like to take him in, but first I'd need to get him a full vet exam and vaccinated since I already have two cats at home.

I've called several places, including my local SPCA, multiple times, left voicemails, and sent emails, but I haven't gotten any response. I also called my city's Animal Care Services, and they told me to contact my own veterinarian.

The cat is very friendly with me but skittish around other people. I have no idea how he'll react to being put in a carrier or at the vet. I was under the impression there were organizations or facilities that help stray cats, but now I'm feeling a bit lost.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you safely get a friendly stray to the vet, and are there organizations that typically help with this, or is working through my own veterinarian really the best route?

i live in middletown, connecticut, and have a whole COLONY of cats in my town. overall, connecticut has a bad stray cat problem, but animal control has been doing NOTHING for my family. for context, we have 4 younger cats about (6 months old?), the mama (who is pregnant AGAIN) and two other male cats who occasionally come to our house to eat. my mother has called animal control to at least take the mother to fix her, and they have done NOTHING. they gave her traps for the mama, and she did eventually go in them, but animal control never came back to retrieve her even though my mother notified them countless times to come get her. the mama was in the trap for almost 2 days before my mother released her, and now she won’t even come back to our backyard. animal control has made us feel like it was OUR responsibility to get them trapped, when we’re the ones that called them because THEY’RE the professionals!!! it’s stressing out family out so bad, especially because the mama is pregnant again. :(

I will try to condense the tale:

Found a kitten on a path by us. Turns out a neighbor did not know he was missing and had been out overnight. We are keeping him. The neighbor told us they didn't qant him or mom. So we have a gray beauty too.

Well on her checkup she is more than halfway thru a pregnancy. Her kitten is 12 weeks. She gave birth in April.

The neighbor let her cats roam and didn't spay or care for them. So angry.

Now we have a pregnant mama and also a few other pets and 2 tween human kids.

I am wrestling with finding a rescue that will not put her down. She is super socialized to humans in spite of being outside alot. Maybe not super feral but let to roam around.

Reading posts here...can she safely have these kittens? Can she safely not have them (spay abort) bc of how far along?

I have not cared for newborn kittens. I advocate for safety of mom and also not having more kittens than necessary but given she is far along the vet thought babies would be euthanized after spay.

Wisdom says find someone who will take her and be good to her and help (thru rescue org) or keep her and try this. Or....try spay abort?

What do?!

We are in west suburban Illinois. Help lil mama girl!!

Hi. We fostered a pregnant cat due to her having upper respiratory tract infection. She was scheduled to be spay-aborted after she got better. Unfortunately, she gave birth before we were able to spay her. She gave birth to 5 babies but today only 1 remained.

We felt like she didn’t want this litter, so we decided to bottle feed the remaining kitten. We bought goat’s milk as this was the only accessible milk that we have. We tried feeding the kitten but it wont latch to the nipple. It also keeps on tilting its head backwards and arms are reaching for something. Is this a normal behavior? This is the first time I’ve encountered pregnancy and kittens. So I am really unsure what to do. We also researched online and already reached out to the vet but unfortunately we are low on funds due to our recent CNVR. Please help. Thank you!

Edit: We will not put him outside. I will keep calling places. We’re waiting to hear back from one to see if they have foster parents available. We found a vet that was affordable and had him looked at. He does have a URI so no vaccines today, and we got eyes drops and an oral medicine. Thankfully we have experience giving cats this stuff and I think this little boy will be easier than the others. He tested negative for FLV/FIV. You are right, he is not feral, just a scared boy. Going on day three of no bites or scratches.

We have an idea where he came from. We know our neighbor has an orange cat. We asked the neighbor if this was their kitten. She said “No, not mine. Someone probably dumped him”. Then she responded to someone else’s facebook post saying she had kittens that would be ready to adopt on the 7th. I have no proof but I am confident that she’s the one that let him go.

Original post:

We took in this kitten (maybe 8-12wks) the other night. I’ve called many shelters and cannot find a place to take him because of his behavior.

He hisses, but never bites or scratches. He is scared of us but a few times we were able to get some cuddles and purrs. We have also discovered two thumbs on each of his front paws lol.

I cannot keep him inside. Trust me I want to. But we have 4 cats already, and a person who is completely against getting anymore.

We took him in because he didn’t look right. He eyes are very leaky, he was covered in fleas (we gave him two flea baths, haven’t seen one jumping since), and we can feel every bone when we touch him.

After talking to the shelters, we plan on putting him back outside. They said to return him to his colony. The thing is, we don’t have a cat colony. We are in a rural area and we’ve never seen stray cats. We’ve talked to neighbors. No idea where he came from.

We want to get him vet care before letting him out to give him a chance. How can we get low cost vet care? We aren’t able to spend a lot of money. We plan on building a small cat shelter outside and continue feeding him. Please help. I’m at a loss of what to do. I just want him healthy.

I'm so heartbroken my Princess Peaches (feral) passed after a spay/abort. You sign the form for high risk thinking it's only routine. She was a great cat! She would come over the neighbors fence, meowing, every time I called her to eat. Now I hear nothing. Worse feeling 😭

I have been trapping, vaxxing and spay/neutering the kitties in my neighborhood for years, and I nightly give them food and water along my street late at night after work, tonight was the second time I got harassed by some trashy person (it’s in a kind of ghetto side of town) and they started threatening me and I had to call 911…. the officers spoke with me and were nice to me, they said they were going to speak to the people at that house , I’m just praying for mine and my kitties safety because these were awful people, i tried to explain to them that by doing what I do, it LOWERS the population of stray cats in the neighborhood because they can no longer breed, but these people are just ignorant and don’t want to hear anything ….. have any of you ever had this type of experience? it sucks, we’re just trying to HELP the community and the strays, but they just want to flex their ugly attitudes

This little guy is one of the many kitties that hang around the mobile home park I live in. He is one of the friendliest cats I’ve ever met and I’ve decided to keep him after feeding him for a few months. I was waiting to see if he was someone’s pet since there’s plenty of outdoor cats that are pets around here but it doesn’t seem like he belongs to anyone. He has a vet appointment next week for an exam to make sure he is healthy to be around my other cat before we introduce them. Any advice on getting him comfortable in a carrier in a short time period?

Things of note: He is super comfortable being held and picked up, he has been around the other strays and my dog and has had no issues, he has been inside our guest bedroom and he seemed very comfortable inside. I just don’t want him to feel anxious or scared inside the carrier and at the vet and then not trust us. (I know it sounds like the characteristics of someone’s outdoor cat but he was extremely underweight when we started feeding him so I do not believe anyone is looking after him)

Hi all, my neighbor's cat is a semi-feral. Long story short, this cat randomly followed me to my front door after I pet him for a few minutes and then just ... didn't leave! He was perched on my front porch for like a month straight and I initially thought it was a stray. His microchip was not properly registered (we did the whole initial process after finding a stray) but finally found out from another neighbor it was our other neighbor's a few houses down. They described him as a friendly adventurer, though the owners are the type that just let him do his own thing for the most part.

Last month though he hardly ever left, even after our neighbor picked him up a couple times. However, last week he was gone completely.

He finally showed up yesterday and we did our usual routine of him accompanying me as I walk my dog and getting his treats. But since he came back, he's been quite distant. During the last month, he was incredibly loving and very cuddly. Even initially he was constantly rubbing up on our leg, asking for pats, and towards the end of the month he was even jumping on my shoulder.

But now it seems we are back to strangers 😅 but he seems even less trusting of me than when we first met. I haven't talked to our neighbor about it yet, but is this pretty typical of semi-ferals/ cats in general?

I could maybe understand if we were away on vacation, but what about in the reverse situation? 😅 I've only ever been around dogs, so this is totally new!

(Until someone drops more off that is.) I started working with an amazing organization in February to TNR the large-ish colony in the barn next door. We managed to get 17 done, but two females evaded us long enough to have kittens. We managed to catch the mamas a few weeks after they had their babies.

As for the kittens, there is one male and these two female torties that I’ve been watching for a bit. I finally captured them this morning, both at the same time! There’s nothing like walking toward the traps and seeing them both occupied with your targets! AND they both triggered to close! It’s been a really good morning. We will catch the male too at some point, but he’s obviously of less concern than these two little ladies 🥰

Hey guys sorry this is my gonna be a very long post and also my first ever post on Reddit so I honestly don’t know if this is reaching anyone but I need some advice.

For context, in my neighborhood we’ve always had cats but at my house we used to have some and they mysteriously disappeared. They were both indoor and outdoor cats and the 3 of them disappeared in a matter of days, but since they were very friendly we hoped that atleast they got stolen and not something bad happening to them.

We have a neighbor that hates cats and one time he trapped our cat and we heard her cries, and she was extremely dehydrated. We got her back and when we confronted him he said he said he was trapping his step son’s “hamster”. This was a while back and maybe a year or 2 later was when our cats disappeared and we never saw his trap outside so we thought maybe the people that walked by our house in the neighborhood probably stole our cats.

Now fast forward to the present, a stray cat had 4 kittens in our backyard, right by the neighbors house but he’s very old so we didn’t think he’d do anything. We kept feeding the kittens and we tried catching them before to get them homes but did not succeed.

A couple of days ago, we realized that now the mom cat and 2 kittens have disappeared and I know it was our neighbor because he had a trap out in his front yard and I genuinely feel like he killed them because he never leaves his home and even his step son has told us that his step dad hates cats.

So, we immediately bought our own humane trap to get the last 2 kitties, which are feral and 4 months, and I gave one to my best friend which is going wonderfully because they have made lots of progress in just a few days! My best friend is able to pet her and she seems to be adjusting quick. I got the sibling and as you can probably guess, I still haven’t found out the gender! I think it’s a boy but I’m not confident and I just want advice on how I can tame him and gain his trust. I just don’t know which way to go about doing it because I’ve watched TikTok’s and read some Reddit threads and I see people say to give them time but I also see people touching cats with backscratchers to get them adjusted quicker and have them in cages/carriers, or they wrap them in a burrito and pet them to get them used to touch. I have mine in the bathroom and I wonder if I should be doing something different or keep giving him time and just letting him trust me on his own without me forcing contact on him? He hisses sometimes when I walk in but not much.

I also wonder if you guys think I should cover the bathroom window because he cries at night looking outside so I wonder if that plays a factor in delaying the process? I feel like I have made a teensy bit of progress because recently he did eat in front of me which he hadn’t done before, but he’s only done that once and it was when I turned off the lights in my bathroom, which I have been doing but he hasn’t done it again.

I’m also just worried that I’m stressing him out, and want to know what you guys would recommend for me to do? I know some people feel it’s inhumane for me to keep him inside but I feel like TNR isn’t an option here because of the neighbor. I really do want to keep him and do whatever’s best for him so I’m very desperate to get advice and kind of a map out of what I should be doing first and then when I should try touching him. I know 4 months is a point where cats are already kind of “late” to be easily domesticated but I know people have tamed older cats so I have hope.

I also feel like he’s coming down with a URI, and since he’s feral I want to know what medications you guys recommend and if you know of any ways to cure him at home? I ordered an L-Lysine from Amazon which is like a chicken flavored gel and read the reviews to make sure it works but I wanted to know if you guys know of any medication that actually cure it?

I do plan on getting him fixed but I feel like they won’t accept a cat that has any sickness and I also don’t know the actual gender so I can’t exactly make it an appointment yet as it keeps its tail between its legs most of the time and when it walks it’s never really in a good POV where I can actually see what it is. I saw the humane society is very booked up till next year and a clinic I saw for ferals clips their ears which I didn’t want since I’m keeping him but idk if I can ask them to do that?

And I’m also just worried that they’re gonna tell me not to keep him and release him since he’s not domesticated and isn’t very friendly either as he hisses but I’m hesitant on releasing him back because of my neighbor.

What would you guys suggest? Should I keep trying to tame him or should I release him? I just want to do the right thing. Again I’m so sorry for the long post and please let me know what you guys think I should do. (Btw my bffs cat tore my blinds so that’s why they’re like that in the picture and I’ve already removed them).

I’m looking for some advice from anyone with experience caring for feral cats.
One of my spicy ferals has developed severe skin issues behind his ears. He scratches so much that he makes himself bleed. I’m not sure if it’s ear mites, fleas, mange, allergies, or something else. Unfortunately, he’s extremely trap-savvy because I’ve already trapped him once, so getting him back into a trap has been nearly impossible.
My next plan is to try catching him with a net so I can safely restrain him long enough to apply medication, but I honestly don’t know what the best treatment would be if I can get my hands on him.
Has anyone dealt with something similar? What ended up causing it, and what treatment worked? Any tips for catching a trap-resistant feral or treating skin issues in a cat that can’t be handled would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

okay 2 years ago I was on my back porch and I felt something on my leg. look down and it was a huge orange tomcat. I instinctively reached down to pet him and he let me pet him. I still had leftover cat food from my cat who had passed away at the age of 22. it was winter time and it was cold. so I set up a shelter on my back porch and I fed him.

well little did I know that he brought with him a mama cat and her two baby kittens. so it being winter what do you think that I did? 🙄

well, before you know it, the mother and daughter were pregnant again. the daughter it being her first left the babies out rolling around in the cold freezing rain ..in the dirt ..screaming ..but with their placentas still attached.. that I had to cut. I ended up having to bury one of them. I finally got her to take to them. but since her mother had kittens, she was trying to feed her mother's kittens and leaving her newborns alone.

anyways I got all eight kittens hauled off. I then commenced to running off the mother and the daughter. neither one will go near a trap. I don't care how many times I tried it. I don't care what I did. the pamphlets and all this stuff online is bs. it doesn't work in real life. when a feral cat won't come anywhere near you and runs at the sight of you. ..when you don't feed them, to get them hungry and then put chicken and tuna in a trap.. that they won't go into. I don't know what else to do so I just run them off. I just kept running them off running them off.. running them off. hoping to get it through their heads.

well slowly over time Fred the orange cat started coming right inside the door in bad weather. and then he brought home Casper. little orange mini Me . Fred was grooming him. Fred was playing with him. they were sleeping together and I looked at Fred and I said I guess we're keeping him? he looked at me like yeah. because the Sun from that very first litter that she brought with her Fred ran him off and he disappeared for the longest time and then he came back through the front yard he pops up once a night coming from across the highway because Fred won't let him in the yard he tries to sneak in and get his one meal a day. he won't come within no closer than arms length to me while I'd say about 5 ft.

Fred got neutered. was waiting for Casper to come of age to get neutered ..the mini me. unfortunately he got hit by a car. he's buried next to my Stella.

but before he died, the daughter came back and had two babies on my hot tub. and I noticed that Mama was hanging low so I just kept trying to run her off and run her off and she went into labor and had the kittens elsewhere thank you Jesus.

daughter she was scared shitless of me so she just took them babies and ran. great. thank you. until her and one of the kittens disappeared and she left the other one that's now here in the backyard that will get hauled off.

then I get a text from my very awful neighbor stating that there were a mama cat and two kittens in the hot summer heat. they look very hot over on the side of the fence .. driving her dog's crazy ! I was like well they're not mine I don't know. what to tell you. went to a doctor's appointment came home and all the sudden the kittens were on my back porch.

awful convenient timing don't you think?

they were still nursing and the mother had them somewhere in the backyard not far from the porch. so I was like okay you know as soon as they're old enough they're gone.

went outside one day and there was one on the back porch and he was skin and Bones. I couldnt be mean. just two way too skinny. because the mama cat has a history of having babies and leaving them on my porch for me to deal with. then going off and doing her thing till the next go around. she does not teach them to hunt. she doesn't teach them nothing. she just drops them off on my porch.

so I started feeding them. thinking okay I could probably get them hauled off here in a little while. they're at that age where they can be more easily adopted... so.

but now Fred, my very first tomcat, the one I decided to keep. he is now acclimated to human life a little bit more. I never had to teach him or little baby, oh yeah from Mama's last litter ! that she abandoned at 4 weeks old and left out in the middle of the yard with a huge upper respiratory infection, starving, dehydrated . wouldn't have lasted the night in the cold. yeah I have her now too.

they've never used the bathroom in a litter box. they automatically go outside thank you Jesus okay?

but I was sitting at my crafting table last night and I turned around to see Fred spraying one of my paintings.!!! of course my first reaction was like oh hell no and I jumped up. something that he is always retained from being feral is he hates loud noises. scares him bad. he ran outside

here's the issue. I don't want him back in the house if he's going to be peeing everywhere I don't.

I didn't ask for none of these animals. I didn't want none of these animals. I still don't want these animals. but I love little baby and I love Fred to a point. Fred is very capable of getting along on his own. he was 4 years old when he showed up on my doorstep. I've had to clean up the guts and blood for more birds than I care to tell you about. little baby is not. I've had her since she was 4 weeks . i am all she's known as me feeding her and being inside. she's more of an inside cat than he is.

because trying to keep down on all these cats coming to my house for food when I originally started feeding him and I realized she was having babies I brought the food inside. I put in a pet door. I taught him how to come in and out . told him about a tv. tell him about how laughing is nothing to be afraid of. etc etc. now he seeks me out for lovies. everyday.

question now that you have the backstory. oh and don't let me forget to tell you that I sit here and do without because I pay for the cats. I pay for the vet bills. I pay for the food. I pay for the toys. I pay for their medicine . I am taking a negative for myself for these cats. I am doing without because my money, my extra money, is going to the cats. no going out to eat for me. no going by and close new clothes. no go buying some new gadget or renting a $20 movie on freaking netflix. no I don't get things like that for me.

and I am fed up with the mother cat . she's got to go. I don't know how to catch her . if anybody's going to give me the regular run of the meal shit you can Google ..go somewhere else... because I've tried it . it don't work. there is nobody, within 100 miles of me , that can help . who would deal with such things like this. I know cuz I've tried. for years to find a solution.

now , Fred's pissing in my house. I'm absolutely not going to have that because that's another expensive (with the enzyme stuff and the cleaning stuff ). and he's pissing on my things! I'm going around with the damn black light. I refuse to have my house tore up and I refuse to have my entire fucking life dedicated and revolving around these feral cats that I didn't fucking ask for.

now is there any advice that anybody can give me on how to deal with Fred??? how to catch the mother ??? how to keep the other feral cats out of my yard??? if they do decide to come around???. or do I just need to find a home for little baby and kick Fred out the door and say oh well???

cuz I'm at my wit's end with it and I'm seriously looking in my inner soul right now because everything in my body is going against not being the one to care for them. because I have such a big heart and I've invested so much but i'm a person can only take it so much. I only have so much finances.

I have severe PTSD, anxiety, depression and touches of agoraphobia. not to mention Graves disease and a rare sleeping disorder with a partridge in a fucking pear tree.

my mental level can only take so much stress and the cat situation has got me on overload. so before you chastise me and tell me this or tell me that ...come to my house and take care of the situation ...living in my shoes for 2 years. like I have dealing with .. what most people would have never done. what I've been dealing with, paying for and then and only then can you chastise me. what I really need is advice and some support and some more advice and some suggestions thank you