Hello everyone. I thought I’d give a bit of an update to the kind people here as it’s been a bit of a saga. I also have a bit of a dilemma on my hands and thought someone would have some advice.
So we finally caught a kitty in the trap! The same one that I saw! .......but not the one my Dad had seen. It looks like there were two stray cats after all. We put the trap back up as it’s about to snow again and get down to five below. Fingers crossed on that one. The cat that we caught definitely needed the help though. It has a frostbitten ear and its little voice is hoarse (it’s given two tiny mews so far in response to one of our cats chirping at it from the other side of the door, but no actual meows yet).
Now here’s the real problem. This cat is 100% feral. (Which could explain the lack of meows.) We thought there was no way that was true as it’s not fat but not anywhere near skinny. But this cat is acting like it’s totally feral. It FREAKED when it came into contact with carpet and jumped on top of the curtain rod. Hasn’t come down since. It’s been hours. It looks at us like we’re complete aliens. I have an ex-feral cat and while she’s afraid of new people, she at least reacts like she knows what they are. I’m not a cat mind reader, but it appears as though this one doesn’t. When it looks at us, its face reads as “fear of the unknown” more than “fear” if that makes sense. I have no idea what to do to try and calm the poor guy down. It’s in a room away from the other animals, and if I leave it alone in the room to let it explore it’s just back to the curtain rod as soon as the door opens. It’s not even clear if it got down in the meantime except once when it sounded like it fell and was hopping back up when I came to check on it. Obviously a (no kill of course) shelter is better equipped to take care of a feral cat than us. I really don’t want to do that but it’s about what’s best for the cat. They could probably introduce it to humans more effectively. But in the meantime, does anyone have any idea what I could do to help it relax? It has food, water, and a litter box (if it even knows what that is) so needs are provided for. It’s just terrified and obviously very, very sleepy. If there’s anything we could do that would help, maybe we could avoid the shelter altogether. Please, does anyone have advice? Even if it’s just short term for the night?
Edit: Forgot to mention, cat is definitely an adult.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/lk1zpt/calm_a_feral_cat/
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