A cat seems to have adopted us?!?!

[Carmenere]

We moved into this house about 3 months ago and ever since a lovely little cat has been spending most of her time in the garden. The neighbours say she has alway been around but did not belong to the previous owners of our house. The cat is relatively well cared for but a bit thin and she does have a collar but no address or name tag.

I had assumed she was just a neighbours cat and came to us for distraction whilst the owner was out at work or somesuch scenario but recently I'm not so sure.

She seems to be very hungry so I have started buying her dry cat food feeding her twice a day and dp says she sleeps under a board beside our bin at night time. More recently she is trying to come into the house all the time which is a pain as all the windows and doors are open.

About 4/5 houses in this road have been sold in the last six months and I was wondering if she may have belonged to someone who has moved out, or maybe has returned to a previous home.

Basically what I'm asking is 'do I have a cat now'?

[Beauregard]

Are you a cook carmenere?

[Ledodgyherring]

Yeah I think you do, cat's tend to chose their owners. We once had a lovely marmalade and whte cat who everyone thought was there's he was a fat thing and we found out that next door gave him kippers for breakfast, he'd have lunch next door but two and dinner in the house on the corner! I once saw him sitting inside someones house on their window ledge in the road pararallel to where we lived at the time! When we moved the lady who lived next door but two asked if she could keep him and since she lived alone we said yes, i still miss him though he was a great cat.

[Ledodgyherring]

*theirs

[twocatsonthebed]

er, probably.

But the kindest thing to do is to contact your local animal shelters and cats protection league to make sure that she hasn't been reported as lost (and perhaps also take her into the vet to see if she has a microchip). Because if she is lost, someone is probably missing her badly.

But then if you don't hear from anyone, you probably do have a cat. (There's a lovely cat on our road who apparently just arrived one day, and stuck around until someone adopted her. Now she thinks she owns the whole street...).

[Beauregard]

If you are then the cat is very wise

[Carmenere]

I am a cook PFNM

[Carmenere]

I think bringing her to the vets is a good idea as my neighbour says she has fleas (not that I've noticed mind you but still...) and get her checked over for a chip.

I had an idea that maybe someone on the road moved away and she found her way back as we had a cat years ago that escaped when we brought her to the vet and appeared home 2 weeks later, SEVEN miles away!!

[Carmenere]

The other thing is that I've actually seen her chase other cats away from our garden, so she obviously feels teratorial about it for some reason!

[Carmenere]

Asked some more neighbours about her tonight and they said she belonged to my next door neighbours but they have already said she is not theirs so it is a bit of a mystery!