Re. Visiting cat?

[EleanorAbernathy]

A young cat started appearing in our garden during the summer, really friendly boy, loved a bit of fuss - we figured he was a neighbour's cat.

Recently he's started showing up again - he has got really fluffy - at both the front and back doors, meowing pitifully like he's never been fed in his life. I am well aware he may be playing us here!

We've let him in a couple of times and he's guzzled away on our cats' food, again like he's never been fed in his life.

We really don't want to steal somebody's cat - but we are feeling really sorry for him! I work shifts and have got home at 4am in the last couple of weeks when it's been freezing outside and he's been out there meowing to come in.

He's not microchipped - I've got a scanner.

Last night I popped a collar on him with a message and my phone number - then he turned up again in the afternoon, collar had gone but nobody has called.

If he belongs to anyone I suspect our next door neighbours - not sure if anyone remembers but I posted a thread about their old cat that got stuck in our roof after being run over - they didn't even have a vet for her! They had another cat too that moved in with the lady over the road.

AIBU to keep letting him in for cuddles? Should we keep sticking collars on him with our details in case he somehow wiggled out of the last one?

We live at least half a mile from any other houses, apart from our immediate neighbours. We get two regular feline visitors - one does everything possible to get in the house, including jumping through open head height windows. Found his owner on a local FB group, he told us the cat likes wandering and collected him as they live a mile away - the cat returned within the day! We stopped worrying about him. The other is more mysterious and wary of us, but still looks well fed and cared for. Both strut around and act like our garden (and house) belong to them.

Neither cat is allowed in the house, nor fed, and both are shoo-ed away by us and the neighbours whenever we see them but it hasn’t stopped either coming round several times a week and trying their luck. Funnily enough, the first one doesn’t really bother our cat, but the second one drives her into a crazy, snorty, fighty, howling frenzy if she spots it. Not fun to deal with.

We have a cat that refuses point blank to come indoors and always has. We live opposite a little green and he just hangs out there. The only time he has ever agreed to come in was when he had an injured paw.
He has had more collars than I can count but manages to remove them.

I am 99% sure that multiple people on the street feeding him thinking he is abandoned because he’s getting very fat .
He’s living his best life .

We have another cat who we have had nearly 15 years who is the exact opposite and sleeps in bed with us

@EleanorAbernathy Thank you...I'd have struggled to sleep without knowing :)

OP have you booked your female cat in to be neutered yet?

Having a cat in heat and a Tom cat hanging about trying to get into your house is a recipe for disaster

She's not booked in yet, it will be next month as we're going away and want to be here to look after her for a few days while she recuperate.

But don't worry, we are on total lockdown- no cat flap, and she will not even be getting close enough to sniff her potential suitor until then!

She doesn't care any more anyway, her first heat was thankfully short lived and she is now only interested in food and finding the comfiest spot on the sofa again!

Don't worry movinonup I don't just go round scanning random cats for fun!

Well, maybe just sometimes...

Update - well not much of one really - he's still visiting us, and meows loudly and constantly outside whichever door he decides to come to. Our kitten isn't on heat any more and they haven't met, she's still on house arrest just in case!

I put a paper collar on him, with our address and my phone number on. We didn't see him for a whole day after that - but no-one called or came to speak to us. He was back again the next day, no collar and has been trying to come in ever since. I gave him a cuddle earlier.

Have you posted his picture on your local Facebook pages?
Paper collars come off very easily.

He doesn't look stray tbh, I have NDN cat now. I study from home so noticed she was skin & bone, shut out 24/7 despite crying to get in (even in the snow, when it was - 3 last year) & riddled with fleas. Owner laughed when I told her she needed flea treating, so that did it. Vet trip & she's now a mummy's girl who has learned how to play & not flinch when touched.

I am a cat owner with a very similar cat to your visitor, I have another cat that started visiting a neighbour who fed her cheese and all sorts, let her sleep inside at night as if it was her cat, I'd be calling her worrying and all the time she was in her house! I was fuming especially now as she's so overweight and needs a special diet. She is micro chipped, I don't like collars as I found her hanging from a tree in a bad way with one that was meant to be easy release! I think if you know who owns him approach them and actually ask them how they feel about you adopting their cat, but don't just assume that he'd prefer to be at yours because you feed and stroke him, it's not fair on the real owners if he's loved by them.

He is gorgeous! I have a female who could be his thinner twin. Mine are strictly indoor though. She is currently under my covers under my legs😺. She loves it there.

He seems to like it at your house. I wonder why no one has contacted you re the collars you have put on. Weird.

Resurrecting this for an update!
He actually lives next door - DH saw our neighbour and asked, but forgot to ask what his name really is or if he's been neutered, but he does actually have a house and is fed although you wouldn't believe it and he deserves an oscar for his "poor starving cat" performances. So he is still Steve to us and no idea why we had no reply to the notes. He does have his own collar on now though!

The other day DH fell for it and fed him on the back patio one morning. Then when he went out of the front door to go to work, there was Steve again, pretending to be a different cat who had never been fed.

Here's a recent photo of his poor, starving face..... Love this cat and we still let him in to thaw out when it's cold out, youngest is speyed now!

Oops forgot the photo, here he is -

Wow, an Oscar-worthy performance. His sleek glossy coat kind of gives it away though.

My poor colleague's little cat went missing six weeks ago. I keep telling her that she's likely living it up with some family who's "adopted" her.

Awww, what a cute little face 😻

I had a most beloved ginger cat who was the light o four lives before we had children.

An old lady decided his affectionate ways were her excuse for appropriating him. She fed him and fussed over him and he took to going to her house for a second dinner.

One day, she popped next door to look after the house for a holidaying neighbour. Our lovely boy, unbeknownst to her, followed her in and she locked him in.

He was missing for a week, nearly starved to death and was utterly dehydrated. Our lovely boy only just escaped dying because of that selfish woman.

I am in no way saying that the OP would do anything similar. Her post voicing concern suggests the opposite. However, our story is a good illustration of how flirtatious cats can be and that there might be some owner who would be distraught to lose their ( from the photograph) gorgeous chap.

Of our, not o four! Sorry. Predictive text. Bah!

We had a cat that looked very much like that. He liked to persuade people he had never been fed and wouldn't keep a collar on. Led to really nasty harassment from our barstard neighbours, that even hit the Dubai and Hong Kong papers, when he tried to claim him. Hopefully the way they treated us was a factor in him not getting his expected knighthood. Be warned.

What a beautiful cat - you can absolutely be forgiven for letting him in for cuddles!!

I once had a wonderful cat as a result of taking on one who kept visiting - it was a long story but to cut it short he was much better off with me than his actual owner.

His ‘moving in’ was a slow and gradual process that took months, starting with him staring at me through the closed kitchen door, to eventually ending up with him always sleeping on our bed.

After he has officially moved in he bought us well over a year of happiness before he sadly passed away.

His name was Brian and he was brilliant!!

Please people DO NOT FEED A CAT THAT IS NOT YOURS!!

our adored and overfed, much petted cat was scared by a neighbours unneutered and aggressive tom. She ran too far to be able to find her way home (she was never a roamer and had rarely left the garden!). It took 3 months for us to get her back - an elderly couple were busy feeding her.

Cats are utterly disloyal, they will go to anywhere there is food. Offering food to a cat which does not belong to you is quite simply enticing that cat away from its people.

If you are approached by a cat which looks in poor condition, inform a local cat rescue or vet who can help find its owner or help it properly if they think it has genuinely been abandoned.

One of my cats has been coming home and throwing wet cat food up. I don't feed her wet food..... because it makes he's be sick.

Her brother often disappears for days and comes back looking very pleased with himself. Never like he's been out in the cold. Iv been worried before in really awful weather about him. Then in he strolls warm and dry with a suspiciously full middle.

Ours comes in smelling of woodsmoke.....and looking suspiciously dry when it’s raining.

Find out if its someones car first. It really annoys me when people do this esp taking someone else's cat to the vet. It's cupboard love. Hasn't chosen you at all. Sorry but have bitter experience of this in the past when someone kept nicking my cat who was well looked after.

Beautiful cat, but I agree with those saying don't feed him. Where I used to live we had a cat who used to get in our windows and nick our cats food. Annoying but never mind. Turns out his owners took him to the vet because he never ate at their house, they knocked at the the various neighbours (housing estate arranged in a circle), and he was eating at 12 (yes, 12!, not including ours as he just raided ours) houses by pulling the starving cat act and was in fact getting obese! This could have caused major issues for the cat

Haha what an update! What a gorgeous boy he is OP. My family had a red boy that habitually took most of his naps next door in their little boy's bed. They didn't feed him but he went for the loves. When they moved house they came back now and then to visit our ginger boy it was so lovely! And when our cat died, the little boy from next door came by (20 minute drive) to help us bury him (that little boy was then 18 years old and not so little anymore!). It was adorable, they loved our cat so much