Rescuing/Adopting Street Cats

 

Just sharing some thoughts, for Caturday, on our experiences with rescuing street cats and integrating them into our cat family.

Food

 Most street cats (all of them, in our experience) are not fussy eaters (unlike some domestic cats). Generally, once they are inside and have food at the ready, they don't really trust that will always be the case. We had one cat, who really was close to death from starvation, who did not leave the food bowl for two weeks, except to use the litter box. He would eat from it, sit beside, view the world from it, and sleep beside it. Eventually, he got the idea that the bowl would always be there, and he started exploring his environment.

Litter Box

Most street cats have little trouble adjusting to a litter box since they look for dirt outside for doing their business. We have seeded a little box with the litter of another cat if we are going to keep a newly rescued cat separated from the other cats for a while. Once our family of cats got big enough and we got old enough, seven litter boxes (the number recommended) was just too much to take care of. We were able to drop down to four litter robots and keep the house smelling as if there were no cats at all there. Litter robots are a fantastic creation!

Vet Affairs

A new cat requires a trip to the vet. Beyond neutering and chipping and vaccines, which go without saying, all kinds of things can go wrong on the street, even when the cat looks healthy. We had one cat that had developed a lung disease -- took about three weeks to cure (and I caught it in the process). Teeth are often wrong, and two of our street cats had to have all of their teeth removed to save their gums. Surprisingly, they can eat just fine without teeth (though of course teeth are better when chewing is needed). 

Illness and Death

AIDS, leukemia, and cancer are often present in street cats. Feline leukemia, but feline AIDS, contrary to what is generally popular opinion, is manageable, including incorporating a cat with AIDS into a family of cats. Unless they bite deeply into another cat and deposit saliva -- has never happened with our cats -- the disease will not transfer. Sharing bowls and litter boxes is okay. Cancer, though, is a heart breaker. We have three cats with cancer -- skin, lymphoma, and breast cancer, and we lost a street cat to lymphoma at too young an age. He was a very unique cat, and we grieved for him; to cope, we wrote a picture book story about him, called Intrepid, and that helped. (And people wanted copies.) MSI Press LLC will do the same for any grieving pet owner at cost. See excerpts from Intrepid HERE.

Thinking about the opposite scenario -- when owners die -- check out this important post on how to avoid harm coming to your pets: An Important Discussion about Pets.