Poor starving cat on my doorstep

[Nicecatneighbour]

There's a sad looking creature crying at my front door, obviously sad stray. What shall I do?

can you post a pic?

Take to vet to see if it has a chip.

these are options:

1. adopt her/him
2. feed him without adoption
3. call a vet or shelter

Are you sure it’s a starving stray ? Cats do a very good impression of neglect to get food ..

How do you know it's a stray? Cats try it on for food all the time, there are tons of owners on here whose cats got nicked by a nice person who thought they were hungry.

oh, yeah, posters are right... check if it's really a stray

I thought this was going to be related to the bird thread and the cat was starving because he wasn’t allowed to catch birds anymore 🤦🏼‍♀️

You need to scan it. Post on your local FB group. There should be someone with a scanner who will come to scan it depending on where you live

Are you sure it's a stray?
Do you have scan angels in your area? They scan strays

When you say “sad” do you mean very underweight (cats should be slim) with matted hair and gunky eyes sad or is it just there and mewing?

I’d photograph it if as above and enquire if it belongs to anyone. Don’t bring or let it into your house unless it is injured or so ill that you need to take it to the vet.

The risk with feeding it is that it may be elderly and on a special diet and also you don’t want to encourage it away from its home if it has one.

Cat distribution network is at play

I live in the US and it's much less common here for people to let their cats go outside. Most cats are indoor cats. So I rarely see a cat outside in my neighborhood.

One day this fuzzy black cat showed up on my front porch crying. She was pretty skinny, and like I said, most people around here don't let their cats outside so we assumed she was a stray. We fed her and she kept coming back every evening so every evening we would put a dish of food out for her. And then a couple of weeks ago she came back and she was wearing a Halloween collar! Apparently she has been cheating on her real family with us for months!

I think his name is Jeffrey...........

Does it have a collar with a bell on?

Has he pissed on your air fryer?

@steff13 but she's so beautiful, you should feel honoured

I don't think you should feed it immediately. Is there a local WhatsApp or FB you could try to find an owner on? I have a girl with significant food allergies and she was very thin until she was one, it wasn't for lack of eating.

Looks very well cared for and healthy to me

oh that’s not the cat!

ok take a pic and post of the cat on your doorstep

Most of the time they have a home.

She's actually very skinny and her fur is matted in a lot of places and it was full of burrs until we brushed it out.

Is he an artist?

This happened to a friend of mine and she took the cat in whilst searching for its owner - she made a lot of effort but no one came forward. She then kept the cat.

We are. I was just very surprised after weeks and weeks of taking care of her that she showed up wearing a collar. And it's a cute collar too.

We were hosts to a stray cat for two weeks. He was hungry and apparently had spent the week before his camping at our terrace roaming the streets around the estate.

We had him checked for microchip, had none. After two weeks his owner suddenly messaged me on FB, turns out they had just moved and their cat wasn't really streetwise so he lost his way home.
This could be your case. Or the Cat Distribution System gave you a new slave driver.