Cat fostering

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CreamyGoodness

CreamyGoodness

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I'm such a damn mush.

The wife gets home yesterday and a stray cat called her out right on the street. Cold, kinda skinny, and meowing her (?) head off. No collar either... great. SWMBO, of course, instructs me to go get a can of tuna and maybe a box with an old blanket in it.

Ok, done.

Cat continues to meow piteously. We arent allowed pets, I tell my wife more than once. More plaintiff meowing. We go back upstairs and you can hear her crying up 2 stories and through glass windows and doors. So I get the bright idea that my friends who are cat lovers can foster her while we try to find its owners or a forever home. No good, they are visiting family in Texas until monday.

More heart-wrenching meowing and crying. And now the wife has tears in her eyes.

Needless to say, there is a cat in my house right now. An illegal cat. A vocal, illegal, gassy cat. I'm in love with this damn cat.

We gave her more tuna, which she scarfed, before she went over to the radiator. Hungry? check. Cold? check. Scars on nose from a fight with something most likely bigger than her? check. She doesnt seem to be flea-bitten, has clean ears, and doesnt appear to be STARVING, which leads us to believe she is lost or abandoned after having been taken care of. After getting a little more used to us and the apartment she goes from being a little skittish to my shadow.

She hasnt swiped once, or bitten, or ran away. If I walk to the kitchen, she's on my heels. If I sit down, she immediately hops in my lap and headbutts my armpit.

I tell you right now, whatever I have to do to get this cat a forever home I will do. We are taking it to the vet to see if it is chipped, see how old it is, if its really a girl or if its a boy and then we are going to get it fostered and see it through to a forever home.

This damn illegal cat will not spend another moment outside in the cold for the rest of its life. :mad:
 
Good on you. Good karma is a great thing to build up, especially for the likes of you, Creamy. :p

The last stray cat that wandered up here did so as I was recuperating from mono. Not being a real TV person, I was going nuts and spending most of my time on the porch in a lounge chair trying to stay sane. This damn cat just shows up and starts to make himself at home in my lap. I said, no way, not another one. This one's gonna find another home. I took him to get fixed, shots and flea treated, then put him up for adoption.

He was still up for adoption a few days later when I saw him out of the kitchen window, playing with something suspicious-looking out by my Jeep. Sure enough, he'd killed a copperhead right by my Jeep door. He's in my lap at this moment, making biscuits and purring, two years later. He's a great cat.
 
Killed a copperhead, now that is a cat that earns his keep. My cat is a mouser(I have her chipped). OP, also put an add in Crageslist and look for one.
 
I think when my friend gets back from Texas we will give her over to foster on Monday. She just lost a cat and is smarting from it. I would get unlimited visitation rights that way.

How anyone could let an animal that is so social stay out in the cold is beyond me.
 
my wife & I just got 2 kittens from a shelter. my wife used to foster a lot. especially litters of kittens when she worked at the shelter in Rapid City. all of our pets have been a rescue in one way or another. either from a shelter, or my wife rescued personally while working at a shelter. one of our late cats was found covered in poly urethane. he was scrawny & very distrusting of people. he ended up being a very large lovey cat. good on you all for having a large enough heart.
 
There is always your gay downstairs neighbor who makes cookies. Maybe you could leave it with him, since the apartment already smells like cat piss if I remember correctly.
 
Maybe it's the former tenant's cat. Were they the type to do such a thing?

Anyways, good for you for helping out the cat.

If the friend doesn't work out, and if you're really attached to your apartment and don't want to move to a pet friendly place, try posting the cat on facebook's virtual garage sale. A few months ago we found 2 kittens that the owners didn't want, fostered them for a few weeks, and then posted them on the virtual garage sale. They were adopted within 2 days to a family across town.
 
I have dogs that prevent me from owning an indoor cat, doubt I'd have one regardless of dogs. I do have a mouser that wondered onto my land and has taken up residence in my sheds. I feed her every few days and she shadows me while I work, never getting closer than about 20 feet unless there's food in her bowl on my office porch, then she will eat while I stand right by her. At least once a week she'll walk by me showing off a kill, usually mice or rats but there's been a few decent size rabbits. Shes a small cat so watching her laboring under the size of a full grown rabbit is comical.

If you like the cat I say keep it. Unless your landlord does inspections, how's he going to know you have one at all. Life's too short not to have a good pet.
 
Tex said:
I have dogs that prevent me from owning an indoor cat, doubt I'd have one regardless of dogs. I do have a mouser that wondered onto my land and has taken up residence in my sheds. I feed her every few days and she shadows me while I work, never getting closer than about 20 feet unless there's food in her bowl on my office porch, then she will eat while I stand right by her. At least once a week she'll walk by me showing off a kill, usually mice or rats but there's been a few decent size rabbits. Shes a small cat so watching her laboring under the size of a full grown rabbit is comical.

If you like the cat I say keep it. Unless your landlord does inspections, how's he going to know you have one at all. Life's too short not to have a good pet.
Click to expand...

I believe it has been proven that having pets makes you live longer
 
I just heard myself saying some dumb crap to my wife. "She's going to feel betrayed and scared in an hour when we put her in the carrier and take her back out to the cold car, and then there's going to be a scary doctor..."

I'm a sucker and this little bugger totally owns me.
 
Oh man. The other day when I took Spider Monkey Bitey Cat for a ride in the truck and she stood on the seat with her paws on the dash, looking at the garage door through the windshield with her tail all puffed up and meowing like, no.. My home. Don't take me away... Why?..... :(

It took awhile to coax her back out too. But then we were friends again. :D
 
I take my cat outside like twice a year. Once in the summer to play in the long grass. Once in the winter to set him in the snow.

Took him out in the snow the other day and set him in the snow and he sniffed it for like two seconds then gave me a dirty look as if to say "Ok a$$hole! Its cold take me back inside now or you die!"
 
Vet visit was interesting. Our little girl is a little boy. And he's been neutered, and is a decent weight even though you can feel the definition of all his ribs. Definitely once an owned cat. No collar or chip, and definitely hungry and cold when we took him in, so I still say Im doing the right thing. We passed out 50 freaking fliers.

Totally free of communicables, so getting him fostered/forever homed should be a snap.
 
If you keep the cat be sure to pick up a owners manual.

224903_518207118209631_954399875_n.jpg
 
Woke up this morning to Twist butting his head right between my eyes. All night long this little cat kept cuddling closer and closer until he almost dumped my wife and I out of bed. She was displeased.

I keep telling myself Im a dog person, but this cat has my number.
 
Cats are the best. Positive number 1 to them is if you're leaving town for a few days you just clean the litter box, give them some food and they're good. Other great thing about them is they do the cutest things. My girlfriend's family lives in NH and she goes home for the holidays and stays there a long time so when she's gone the cat sleeps in her spot and it takes a few days for the cat to adjust to her being back cause his super soft and warm sleeping spot is gone. he kept stretching to push us out of the bed last night.
 
On the off chance anyone wants an update... my friend and her boyfriend returned from Texas and came over to see if Twist might be a fit in their house. She sat down, Twist hopped in her lap and started his usual series of charming antics. They are in love, just like we are, with the damn cat.

Only hurdles now are the worm test (wife is doing that today) and whether or not Twist gets along with her current cat. If nothing else, I know we have a warm place to hold him if my landlord has a sudden tantrum. Which is a relief and a half.

In the meantime, he has taken to sleeping between the two of us, so as to prevent any human cuddling and increase his chances of getting crushed in the night.
 
If it doesn't work out I have a solution.

First you get a couple of cartons of Chicken stock (unless you prefer homemade).

Then.


Hold on. I wrote it all down somewhere....
 
CreamyGoodness said:
In the meantime, he has taken to sleeping between the two of us, so as to prevent any human cuddling and increase his chances of getting crushed in the night.
Click to expand...

Hey thats a bonus. No more wife trying to sleep all over you. My cat sleeps between us and always seems to know when to move as to not get smushed.
 
This morning I woke up to discover that I was sleeping on my back (I never sleep on my back) and Twist was purring on my chest.

My friend is totally enamored and brought over a toy for him last night. Fingers crossed, she is going to take him home next week after a business trip.
 
I think rescued pets are probably some of the most devoted and loyal pets.

My mom has a cat she rescued as a kitten that is absolutely in love with her to the point of jealousy towards any of the other animals in the house. When she gets home from work and sits down the cat will jump up on her and curl itself around her neck giving her a sort of a cat hug. It's adorable.

Good on you Creamy for taking the cat in.
 
Twist is going to his forever home tomorrow. I am very conflicted, but I am looking forward to sleeping through the night was visitation rights :).
 
I had a cat before he ran away... nearly a mile... to live with "Rebecca", the far away neighbor. Great cat, even loved to go for car rides, and take showers. Because he smelled bad a lot of the time, let's get in the shower!!! When he went missing, I asked around the somewhat nearby neighborhood. That's when I found out Rebecca had stolen him. People said, "Go confront her, get your cat back!". Nah, I'm not really a cat person and I don't think he really liked the showers, the pitiful mew, mew, he's better off with Rebecca and his forever home. I hope all goes well for Twist. I called my cat "Pinky" because he was so pure white, you could see his pink skin through the hair. Great cat while he hung around.
 
We had a temporary cat like that. He up and decided to stay out one day. We'd still see him, but he just wouldn't come back in.

Then the other cat we took in with him had kittens. We figured then he was a dead beat cat daddy.
 
I have to say, the first thing I thought was 'Cat Mead'.
 
So I went over to their place last night to visit the cat. He's taken to his new surroundings well. Several weeks of good food and his body has filled out considerably, making those big ole thumbed paws look more normal sized, and you cant feel his spine any longer. Also, I saw him playing with a ribbon, which he never used to do, and he has a favorite book shelf that has a secret hiding spot equipted with a pillow so he can do cat things at will.

I used to feel special that this cat liked curling up on me, but the fact of the matter is he is a huge slut. My friend was cuddling him and he upped the volume on his purring to "wake the neighbors" levels, and did the squinting and biscuit making. I suspect he would do the same with Hitler if given the opportunity.

I walked away knowing that SWMBO and I may well have saved this awesome animal's life, and definitely acted as the conduit to an awesome life. I feel really good about it.

On the downside, they changed his name to Schrodinger. I liked Twist better.
 
Another update. Went over to Lucas and Kitten's place last night to hang out for a few after work and sneak in a little time with Schrodinger.

He is up to 10 pounds. You can no longer see any bones at all nor can you feel them. He's leaps and bounds more active than he was before, climbing the cat tree and getting the cat crazies when the food closet opens. I'm not ashamed to say I had tears in my eyes. His previous owners can jump off a bridge.

Here's the funny thing, now if you offer him a cat treat between your thumb and forefinger and hold it quite a higher than his head he will slink his body up on his hind legs like a seal or some sort of lynx and put the treat and the tips of your fingers in his mouth every so gently and lick the treat out of your fingers. Do the same motion again with no treat in your fingers and he will delicately nibble and lick your fingertips.

No cat has ever so much deserved a loving home, and he got one. Every so often things work as they should.
 

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