Author Topic: Backyard critters  (Read 106117 times)

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Offline GburgNatsFan

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Re: Backyard critters
« Reply #700: August 03, 2014, 06:32:15 PM »
Tough one. Can you call the no-kill shelter (if there is one) and ask them for advise?

I'm kind of at a loss here.

Two weeks ago (July 21) we came home after being in Maryland for the day and found the cat shown below sitting on our deck. We'd never seen it before. It just sat there staring at us, but when we tried to go outside to look for signs of a collar or the like it ran away to our neighbors' deck, then came back after we went back inside.

It's continued to show up, so we put up flyers around the neighborhood trying to find its owner (if there is one). No response from anyone. Meantime, the cat still shows up every afternoon. My wife feels sorry for it and started feeding it dry cat food at the urging of her colleagues at her office; I wasn't sure that's a good idea, but she felt guilty just ignoring it out there.

Problem is......what do we do about it? We aren't in a position to try to adopt it and let it into the house, but that wouldn't matter because after two weeks it still runs next door if we go outside. I have no idea whether it has been "fixed," which is one reason for my concern about feeding it (I'm wary of causing a litter of feral cats). Fairfax County Animal Control does not deal with stray cats because cats are allowed to roam free under county ordinances, but I wouldn't call them anyway because they'd probably euthanize it. My wife doesn't want me to try to get a humane trap from a "no-kill shelter."

Any ideas for what, if anything, we should do? (Edited to add: Ms1995hoo just spotted it out there napping at the far corner of our deck. So it has clearly decided it likes our deck for whatever reason, though I know it'll run away when I go outside to light the grill in about half an hour. BTW, the reason I say "it" is because we've never gotten close enough to determine its sex.)

(Image removed from quote.)