I have two cats (just turned 12 months, have had them from 12 weeks, both neutered at the earliest opportunity) - brother and sister from the same litter. A couple of months ago, the more outgoing of the two brought a friend home. Said friend also seems to be a young adult, we think she is female. She has got bolder over the weeks but now seems to have taken up permanent residence with us. Ours are very outdoors cats (the boy more so than the girl), but come in to eat and be pampered.
Said 'stray' is a stomach on legs. Started off by scoffing whatever ours left (we leave the back door open almost permanently due to not being able to fit a cat flap anywhere) and has now moved on to work her way through the cupboard of food that my fussy pair won't touch. She's almost emptied this now though, which leaves us with the dilemma of do we deliberately buy food for her to eat.
We don't honestly know if she has a home. She wasn't skin and bones when she arrived, nor was she riddled with fleas and ticks. I've scrutinised her bum on several occasions but can see no sign of worms. I've scoured all of the lost pets websites and can't see her listed, nor have our local blue cross been contacted by someone looking for a cat of her description. As I see it, we now have a small number of options and I really don't know what to do for the best or whether I could be hard-hearted enough for some of them :
a) Kick her out whenever she tries to come in, distance ourselves from her and hope that she has a home she can go back to;
b) Continue to feed and pet her, as she seems to be constantly very hungry, and treat her as one of our own;
c) We have annual leave coming up at the end of October. Take her to the vets in the hope that she is microchipped, and get in touch with her owners if she is; or
d) put a collar (if she will take it) on her, with one of those little identity barrels, and put a note in it on the off-chance that she will act as 'messenger-cat' between us and her real owners.
e) combination of a+c
f) combination of b+c
I know it was wrong of us to allow her to feed her in the first place, so please don't shout out me too loudly 
I'm just after practical advice as to what we can do now really.
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The litter tray
How to deal with a 'stray' who has adopted us...
Geeklette · 03/10/2012 13:55
Ooh fluffy yes, I love the paper collar idea! I will try that tonight, and if we hear nothing then we'll squeeze her into one of our cat carriers at the end of the month and cart her off to the vets for a scan.
She's a stunning cat, but turning out to be very high maintenance. She's part Bengal, so very(!) large, noisy, boisterous, demanding and active. She's also unbelievably cute, loving, inquisitive and adorable 
. She's the breed that DP wanted rather than a bog-standard moggie (which we ended up with), but he's starting to feel glad he didn't have to cope with one as a kitten!
Naturally, she will turn into the fussiest eater in the world if we end up adopting her permanently 
.
Juneau, thanks for confirming - it's good to have a plan :)
I think you're probably a family of 3 cats now, geekette.
Remember - just because you can't see any worms from her backside, doesn't mean that she hasn't got intestinal parasites. That's only one of the signs - and if she's a young cat who has been living wild there's a very good chance that she'll have them.
PS - under no circumstances look up 'pictures of cat worms' on google. Especially if you're planning to eat this evening.
I got the idea off the CPL, I didnt think of it myself.
We have a bengal.
You wont think it's so cute when you have muddy paw prints all over the clean bedding in the underbed drawer because the cat has seen you open it once and has learnt to open the drawer for a snooze.
thank goodness for work's website blocking software cozie !! Depending on the outcome of the paper collar and vet trip, I suppose I need to price up insurance
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