since May 4th, there has been a cat that keeps coming to my backyard door to cry. I gave her some water but if I leave the door open she comes in after meowing for a bit. She enters with a lot of precaution. She rubs herself against the doors, cabinets, garbage. She is sort of friendly and if I ignore her; she will put herself on her back legs to touch me with her front paws. I started feeding her canned salmon because I felt bad especially when I notice she had been declawed and her tail had been broken and heal wrong. I have never taken care of a cat but I would not mind keeping her. I just don’t know what to do. I let her stay inside 3 days ago when the weather just turn awful. When she asks to go out I let her but she comes back after max half an hour. She peed yesterday on the bed because I didn’t understand when she started meowing at my door at 4am that she needed to do her business. She sleeps in the kitchen and seems to be comfortable. But she has a cold or warm attitude and warm she becomes when she wants something and she is coming into the house. That’s when she is a bit playful.
What do I do? How to I proceed?
Dear Readers,
My answer began, “Congratulations! YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.”
As my reader discovered, chemistry is a wonderful thing. When a cat comes up to us and begs for help, it solves a lot of potential issues, like whether or not the cat is friendly and will get along with us. This cat has picked us out of thousands! We already have some kind of connection.
A beseeching stray is not a feral.
This is a lost, abandoned, or neglected cat. They once knew love, lost it, and are avidly seeking it again. They are gems with huge hearts.
I wrote back:
What you are doing is wonderful. She runs cold and warm because she’s already been abandoned once. So she will be cautious and careful.
You sound amazingly understanding and intuitive, so I’m sure you will do well. As your relationship progresses you will be amazed at how close the two of you can be.
What creates the cat who wanders, looking for love? It is usually the abandoned cat. They were given a home as cute kittens, and when they grew up… they weren’t loved any more.
I admire cats for not giving up on their hopes. Once loved, they hope to have it again. Once attached, they seek re-attachment. These cats are known quantities. They have proven themselves to be so affectionate that they will seek it out again.
Why have we been chosen? Because we signaled, whether we realized it or not, that we were receptive to their overtures of friendship.
The writer here expressed the compassion this cat was looking for. She didn’t respond with anger or express a desire for the cat to go away. She opened a cat of salmon. This told our poor homeless cat that her communication had been understood.
Is this cat really lost? It’s possible, certainly. And if so, and they have been chipped, a visit to the vet or a shelter will reveal the contact information for a grieving, yet hopeful, owner. Otherwise, it is highly unlikely. The writer revealed that her SPCA keeps lost cats for two weeks, in case the owner shows up.
I understand the sentiment, but most owners will not keep showing up at the shelter, week after week. If there was the same effort taken as the ones to round up lost dogs, that might be different. But cats are elusive, and there are few personnel tasked with their rounding up.
This became an issue for the writer because she wanted to take advantage of the one-price offer the shelter had, where the cat would be spayed and given her shots and medical treatment. The writer asked me if this would be a good thing since a local vet charged half that for an appointment and de-worming only. Yet she hesitated to have the cat locked up for two weeks, and I completely understood and sympathized. We both felt this would be a threat to the bond which was developing.
As it turned out, she took my advice to go for the quick vet visit, since the cat was declawed, and would have been spayed and gotten her shots at that time. As deplorable as the practice of declawing is, vets often throw it in as a package deal. And since the writer had no other cats who could pick up an illness, the de-worming was the health issue that would most impact the human, and the most likely to be needed.
My last reply had pictures of an adorable green-eyed black panther and the following:
Thanks again for the wisdom
I even had a Uber driver offered me a free litter box today!Well it will be fun to discover her and be able to know which sort of cat she is (alpha,beta or gamma )
Here are a few pictures of herI gave her a bath today and she responded very well.
I wished them both my best.
I’m thrilled this writer is starting her cat journey with a grown cat.
As I always say, someone has to know what they are doing.
UPDATE:
Here she is!
Her name is Mia.
Isn’t she wonderful?
Find out more about making grown cat connections with the:
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There’s more ways to get our cat to be affectionate in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my CAT AFFECTION posts.
