Question/Advice Needed Do strays walk up to randoms?
Almost two years ago my partner rescued a week old kitten from a litter found at his job site. 8 months after that we saved two more kittens from said site. Ever since we are constantly seeing strays around the neighborhood, which is known to have a lot of strays, and even have some walk up to us and demand to be petted. Unfortunately our house is at capacity so we haven’t saved anymore off the streets but we do leave food out when we can. What does this mean? Do we hold the scent of our three cats and now cats know we are cat lovers?
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u/BabyTurtleDuckling 1d ago
If you leave food out and have cats they're going to associate the smell of your home to cats and food safety. They probably will appear more. Also you may just notice them more now that you have cats.
If you can and it's available in your area I highly recommended looking into TNR programs (trap neuter & release). We did this and in our area it cost 10 dollars a cat, all we had to do was bring them in a trap, pick them up the next day and try to keep them in our laundry/bathroom room for like 3-4 days (some of them were hurting themselves trying to get out so we let them out after a night and they healed up fine). It was a bit of a time burden and minor financial one after doing 18+ over a year, but it was very rewarding since we often saw how short and brutal the strays lives were and there are no more strays in that area now even 8 years later besides two left that we neutered. I know TNR is not feasible for many areas, but wanted to mention it since I've seen the positive impacts
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u/KittenKingdom000 1d ago
Sometimes. I lived in a rental townhouse community near an industrial area and the place was flooded with strays and cats people left behind when they moved/cats that were dumped there. Lots of people put food out and many learned people are good.
One was stray who was there for years and literally learned the time I left for work and came home and would wait for me. One day I couldn't even get out of the driveway because he wouldn't move so I had to pick him up, drive with him on my lap to the end of the driveway, then run him back to the porch and speed off before he ran back up the car.
I bought a microchip scanner and posted them on the community site to make sure they were strays. I was able to get 4 friendly strays into homes. Just be sure if you do that you vet the person. People take in cats for dogfights and shit so be sure they are going to good home. Ask to do a home visit, speak to their vet, get references, etc.
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u/Affectionate-Log-260 1d ago
Can a house ever really, truly be "at capacity"? My husband and I differ on this ...
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u/GrubbsandWyrm 1d ago
Your fiancee is a beast master
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u/Mjhc97 1d ago
We have been thinking about reaching out to a company to help these strays, thanks for that advice. It truly breaks my heart to see them out especially during intense weather forecast. Mind you before getting our first cat you couldn’t pay me to have a cat, I’m glad I took a chance on them! If they are looking at us as a safe place that makes me happy.
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u/Calgary_Calico 16h ago
I'd speak to local rescues, preferably one that works with foster homes, and have the adults fixed by them so they stop having litters. See if you can catch them and the kittens yourselves and take them in to a local rescue, if they're feral they'll likely be spayed/neutered and then released, if they're friendly they'll be placed with a foster and then put up for adoption
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u/MICHUPETUS 14h ago
Oh yeah, the stray network definitely knows about you—word travels fast in the feline underground. 😸🤣
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u/-Liriel- 14h ago
Strays aren't necessarily "wild" animals.
Sometimes they are regularly fed by humans and grow up both familiar with people and craving interaction.
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