Let's See Your Cats!!!

So we’ve had this kitten we spotted a few days ago in our back yard, we’ve been feeding it and trying to gain its trust. We got it to eat off the top of the deck now so we’re making progress. Apparently there is a litter of black kittens in our neighborhood that several have been trapped and taken to foster homes, so I’m not sure what the best option is for this situation? We have three indoor cats and I wouldn’t mind taking care of this one as an outdoor cat, thoughts? Also, we plan to have it fixed if we keep it around...

 

Your going to need to trap it. Then take it in for the procedure. After, you can release him/her in the backyard/neighborhood. The longer you wait..... gaining trust enough to pet and catch will take to long and will be a breeder by then.

 

See that’s what we weren’t sure about, it looks so little but I’m pretty sure the others in the litter were already trapped and fixed. I saw a picture of one that looked like it’s ear was clipped (I assume showing it was fixed and then released). So I guess the sooner the better

 

Shelters and such do clip the ear after the procedure. I believe they can start breeding at like 6 months old. Good luck. We used to have a feral cat population around here. We spent many years catching kittens and rehabbing them and adopting them out. I think we got a total of 6 or 7 rescued, lost one, and relocated 6 others in about a 3 year time span. I was never able to trap the mom, smart ass bitch. The spca was finally able to get her. She just passed away this year, lived here a good 17 years.

 

Yea we had experience with this a few years ago at my wife’s old office, we were able to trap 5 kittens and a local group called kitty connection was able to get the mom. All found homes and one became my wife’s office cat lol (it was a small office of like 5 people)

 

If you trap it the first thing you want to do is have it tested for feline leukemia/aids. If it tests positive then you have 1 of 2 choices to make- get it fixed and set it free or the difficult option of having it euthanized. I’m obviously praying for a negative test if that’s the road you go down.

 

We are staying with some of our family in Germany. This is their cat Pasha, a British Shorthair.

 

Does the meow sound like it's from Britain or Germany?

 

Alright cat experts, I have a question. Denali has started becoming a scratcher. He keeps scratching cabinet doors, dressers, and our bed. Most notably in the morning when he wakes up. I figured it was because he's hungry but even with feeding him I think it's because he wants outside. He's outside a fair amount but we don't let him out when it's dark because we've had a couple instances that he hasn't come back right away and just don't want the hassle of trying to find him inthe dark. He has several scratching posts throughout the house and I have tried rearranging them to see if he prefers one over another but to no avail. Anyone have any ideas of how to stop the scratching? Picture because we all love cat pictures lol

 

Does he have a place where he is allowed to scratch? We’ve corrected this behavior before by praising and rewarding scratching the post and discouraging scratching everywhere else. You can put old towels over the common spots and that will probably keep him from scratching there; they hate it when the towel falls on them.

 

Make sure the scratching posts are big (tall) and stable. Often they like to stretch out when scratching, and if the post isn't tall enough or tip over they won't like it. We made sure ours were tall and substantial. 4"x4" wrapped in rope - always rope, not carpet - and a base that they could stand on while scratching. Cheap little ones and the ones hung on doorknobs never worked for us. We also cat-nipped them when new, but that may be unnecessary. Like @Kremtok we also praised and treated them when the used a new post, and randomly whenever we happen to be there.

 

When I was training my last cat as a kitten if I caught him scratching on something else I'd grab him by the front paws and frogmarch him across the room to his scratching post to finish the job. By the time we got there he was so frustrated that he'd scratch the hell out of the post

But, I was living in a very small 1 bedroom apartment at that point, so we were never more than 10 feet from his post.

 

Squirt him straight in the face with a water bottle filled with bleach. Worked for me! Absolutely kidding folks! Most of you have seen my posts and know how much I love my kitties. Definitely positive praise for scratching in the right places and something to make noise and discouragement when they do it in the wrong places. A quick shake of a jar with change usually does it and in no time they associate the jar itself with not scratching so you don’t even need to shake it. That may sound harsh to some but these little shits rule our lives so when we can introduce a little civil order it brings things back in balance. Granted we still go to work everyday to provide for them and in return they spend the whole day sleeping and the whole night keeping you awake.

 

How’s the little kitten doing?

 

Ok, you got me with the first sentence.
It must be the lack of sleep from the royal highnesses. Give Suki a hug!!

 

How are you and the kitty doing with the mats??

 

Haha got ya. It’s actuslly my wife’s line. We’ve had friend over and they’ve asked how do you keep the cats from doing this, this or that. Wife responds, with a straight face, we just squirt them with bleach. Then the guests just hava a total WTF look on their face and are so perplexed they can’t even say anything. She lets it go for about 5 minutes before telling them haha just kidding.
Suki is sleeping on her kitty tree so she got a good old belly scratching from you.

 

Kudos to your wife.
I started reading it and saw bleach and thought what the is wrong with him.

 

Doing well, shows up for breakfast and dinner lol. Has been hanging out on the deck a good bit as well, but has a safe space under the deck it will run to if we get too close. We’re going to set up a trap Friday or Saturday so we can get it to the vet.