OT: Catching a cat

Your local animal shelter may have a live trap that you can rent to catch the cat. Of course, what do you do with her after she's caught? Make sure that you line up a vet's office that will take care of a ferral cat - some don't.

Happy hunting....

at 30 Jul 2003, Stephan Rose [ snipped-for-privacy@no.bestnetpc.spam.com] wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

First of all, decide what you want to do with her. There are three ways to prevent her from producing kittens, one of those is undoable (keep her indoors and out of contact with males), one is terminal (put her to sleep) leaving you with the third, most humane, option, which is to spay her.

If spay is what you intend to do, check around. Some vets will not spay feral cats. There may be a feral cat rescue in your neighbourhood that does spay them and may even catch her for you. There may also be low-cost spay/neuter clinics around. Also, you local animal services probably does loan/rent traps which you can use to catch her.

I firmly believe in responsible pet ownership. Which is why my shepherd puppy is going in friday for her spay. At 6 months she's now healthy enough after her bout of parvo to undergo the procedure. :-)

Aren't you around Tampa? if so, let me know, there is a feral cat rescue there and animal services does rent out traps.

Dont have cats, you obviously cant take care of them they way there supposed to be taken care of.....tom

Cats rule the Snart household. Our older cat, Harley,is a beautiful 5 year old gray cat and is very noisy, and our younger cat, Bullitt, who just turned 1 year old yesterday, is a beautiful black cat. Harley plays 'Harley fetch', which is based on the rules of 'Calvin Ball'; he makes the rules up as he goes along. Bullitt plays fetch for hours, and if you won't throw his 'mouse', he'll throw it himself. Of course both of the cats demand attention as soon as either my wife or myself sits at the computer desk.....

Catching a ferral cat outside is next to impossible without a trap, if you can lure it inside you can catch them (as someone already suggested). Getting a ferral cat's trust is also next to impossible (unless it's very young still) it can be done but that also will take luring it inside (but not closing it in) to the point (over weeks and months) that is comes to accept you as the person that's feeding it.

Stop feeding your cats outside, make sure all of _your_ cats (the ferral ones aren't yours and without a lot of trust building never will be) are spayed and neutered. The ferral/strange cats are only going to hang around for two reasons. Your sexually active cats or easilly avialable food (which includes such things as a rampant mice problems such as in barns or feed storage etc.). If you got the barn thing going on then that changes things.

Outside food is also probably why you lost a cat to someone's dog. Unless you just have one of those niegbors who lets his dogs roam around... In that case a bigger badder Dog will be required to keep his dog away from your cats. Needless to say get the dog as a puppy and get it used to your cats (and vice versa) as quickly as possible. Believe it or not a dog WILL develop a pack instinct towards your cats just like it does with you. So long as it's not "kept away" from the cats as a puppy (in other words let it get nipped a few times if it's too rough with the cats). Also outside food is an open invitation to racoons and possums, the former can be and usually are rabbies carriers, the latter are mostly harmless but scary looking up close (as in sitting there motionless when you go to fill the bowl one night).

If you are in a rural area and you can't or don't want to take the above advice then resign yourself to dealing with a varying number of variously friendly, ferral or strange cats attracted by your cats and the food. There's a couple ways you can deal with them in this case but none of them are particularly nice.

Actually my cats reside on a 5-acre lot with a 4 stable barn and plenty of food to go around, birds to chase. They got nothing to complain about....

Stephan

Well disregarding the kittens, out of which only one will come within my vicinity..the two adults. The male I can pick up and do whatever I want with. :) He just purrs happily. The female will come near me..but that's about it.

Got the barn thing going on, and that's where I feed em in...

Haven't really seen either around here. Plenty squirrels though, but they know to stay away from my cats and their food, cuz otherwise they have a tendancy to become my cats desert. :) Seen it....

SHUT the HELL up...........tom! Until now, I wasn't sure, but you truly are an ignorant piece of s*it.

Cindy '96 laser red auto GTS

Imagine, somebody that makes me ALMOST tolerable....

Next to my wife, my cats are closer to me than anything else.

Im ignorant? im not teh one who lets my cat be torn apart by a dogs...tom

You get invited to a lot of parties, don't you?

C. Olofsson opined in news:NvRVa.4172$Ye.2452@fed1read02:

Well, then I sure aint gonna offer up MY solution for feral cats.

I have a friend who frequently has EIGHT of them gather around her back yard.. sleep and leave fleas on her deck chairs, s*it in her flowers. Puke up their hairballs on the walk.

the condo associations answer to the problem:

Declare the area a cat sanctuary. I kid you not.

There will come a time when you "animal lovers" will wise up, there are pets and there is GAME that needs to be controlled...

Just take your youngsters to play in around a pond in a public park and see if you can walk without stepping in Canada Goose s*it.

And half the bleeding hearts act as if those #$%^& with feathers are a threatened species.

If you'd like, talk to my neighbor down the street who lets his dogs run loose, which per community rules, is *NOT* allowed. I called animal control immiediatly and had the situation taken care of. Unfortunately, I was not home when this happened, but other people witnessed it. Had I been home or had I come home a few minutes earlier, I could have possibly prevented it.

Stephan

I think he was looking for *intelligent* responses.

Iggy '01 Dyna Super Glide '96 Mustang GT Convertible Keep your powder dry and don't let your meat-loaf. :o)

I've actually tamed both the other 2 cats I've had, one that I still have. But this one..yea she's being quite a challange.

I got her to where she'll eat now in my presence...but still won't come near me. She'll quickly run past me..but not stay.

Stephan

Yeah, when your girlfriend does the pole dancing i do.............tom

What, mommy wont let you swear.......tom

For once I agree with you.

Cindy '96 laser red auto GTS

Not really, Iggy, I just couldn't ignore his stupidity anymore. Although, I was doing very well for a long time. ;-)

Cindy '96 laser red auto GTS