Hey All,
First time poster. Need advice on a current situation. Here goes. I'm sorry about the length.
I live in a suburb-y area in a small community. We are mostly a dog neighborhood with loads in the near vicinity of my house. There is one neighbor in particular who has a very poor behaved large dog that has lunged and bitten other neighborhood dogs and people. (That's another long story.)
Through the years that we lived here there has been one or two feral cats that have wandered the neighborhood- not staying for too long because of the dogs. Recently, one youngish tom came into that yard and I mistakenly feed the cat thinking that he was one such feral cat. Turns out, he's actually very sweet and friendly and came back the next day. I posted on a local book of faces page asking if anyone was missing a cat. Turns out his owners live a half mile away and they said to just message them the next time he comes and they will pick him up. Apparently, other close neighbors have fed this indoor-ish/ outdoor cat and he has become somewhat of a fixture in the surrounding community.
Now I want to preface that I have nothing wrong with indoor/outdoor cats. Especially if they are friendly-ish, healthy (taken care of) and in a safe area. However, each time this cat has come over he has had running nose/ eyes (probably an upper respiratory infection). Once he was also got run up a tree by another neighbors dog. Additionally while he only stays maybe a half an hour each time, he will frequently come back once or twice and try to get into the house. This has started to annoy my indoor only cat. I stopped feeding him since the first time at the owners request but something tells me he not just coming back for potential food.
Tonight it was really raining and he showed up at the back door soaking wet. I quickly grabbed a blanket, to bundle him up and dry him off and put him in the front porch where there is an overhang/ roof to protect him from the elements. I then messaged the owners, hoping they would pick him up as they know my address but I don't know theirs- just their block. Turns out they are on vacation, told me to not feed him, and that he was taken care of with food and shelter. Afterwards I ended up looking up the owners address through property tax records and drove there to make sure I could find the address. From the street I could only make out a cat bed and a food and water dish outside. When I got back home, he was at home and laying on the front bench. Currently he is sleeping in the garden on straw just outside the porch.
What should I do? I built him a make shift fort out of cardboard and old towels (it's supposed to get cold the next few nights- midwest cold.) He may have another way of getting inside his house that I can't see from the street, but his health and safety is something that I'm really concerned about. But I don't want to be that neighbor- who makes a big deal out of nothing- especially since loads of neighbors really like him. Am I being too much of a softy, worrying about this really sweet cat?
Sorry again, for the length of this post.
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/pv0ycc/neighborhood_cat_advice/
No comments:
Post a Comment