Mister E

[elainegrey]

Christine caught Mister E, the orange stray/abandoned cat, and he's in our bathroom now.

Reviewing some sites at http://tenacious-snail.livejournal.com/637444.html

but advice would be lovely.

He should see a vet and then be placed with someone for fostering? He (i haven't checked) seems fairly sweet -- i'm guessing abandoned.

(Some part of me suspects we now own a third cat.)

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Oh well done :-)

You may well own a third cat now :-) ... if he gets on with the others, and if you have room for enough litter boxes.

However, as a former cat rescuer and having lived in many places :
(1) don't discount the possibility that one or more households consider him theirs. There's at least one cat in my current neighborhood that could be called a street cat (the burrs in her long fur make her look homeless and she prefers to be outdoors) but has a couple of different houses where she spends rainy nights and that feed her; and some people have a very lackadaisical attitude toward their pets, especially cats. I'd advise posting a sign. You may even find someone adamant that they own this guy. On the other hand, sometimes longtime street cats decide they want a home. I've known at least 3 snugglebunnies that had made that decision.
(2) get him tested for the cat retroviruses immediately. You may have to wait on the results--few vets use the instant test kits. But it's awful when you discover you've exposed your cats to FIV, and it's always a concern. If you want to re-home him, you also need that test result.

The Silicon Valley Humane Society seem to be very nice people, and they do a lot of fostering and work hard to keep their animals contented and adoptable, but I'm not sure whether they are actually no-kill. In this climate, homeless cats can survive year-round, and there are some people supporting feral colonies with food and/or bad weather retreats, but I suspect there's quite a problem with other people preying on them :-( And there's always the concern about off-leash dogs. So I'm kind of hoping you are able to keep him.

M

[elainegrey]

I did not get your observations about potential possessiveness to Christine "in time:" we got the orange fellow to the vet yesterday afternoon and he's been left for flea dips, deworming, virus checking, and to be neutered.

My guess is most vets figure if they have a un-neutered dog or cat in their hands and it's not breeding stock, they should convince the owner to fix them at that time.

My biggest concern about keeping him is that our cats stay on our deck: this guy knows how to roam. I don't want to contribute to the Orange Cat Mafia that worries Christine and i. It seems that it's just orange cats in our section of the complex that roam around, get under cars in the parking area, come visit our cats, and get into fights and so on. (And it's not like these guys are related, at all! We know the owners of a couple of them...)

But yes, i suspect we have a cat even though i don't want another. Christine's hand was throbbing last night, where Mr M bit her in his territorial excitement, which leads me to worry she did get infected. (She sees a doctor this morning for something else and the on-call doctor suggested waiting until that visit.) We circulated the flyer by email to the neighborhood list and we'll post them around this morning.