Not sure what to do with this lovely little cat...help!

[Alabasterangel6]

I won’t dripfeed so apologies for the long backstory.

I had a cat for 22 years. I am a cat person. DS was born when DCat was 20, so for 2 years he was around cat, touched cat and grew up with a very furry environment.

When DCat died we said no more pets for a while. A year later, at 3, DS went into the home of a dog and with no warning at all had an acute and severe asthma attack. A&E blue light job. It isn’t the only dog he is allergic to because he has less severe but obvious symptoms if we even go in a car where a different dog has been. We are very very vigilant to avoid dogs (due to the acute and severe nature of the attack) and DS is now 8. We’ve always wondered if he is the same with cats but a) hoped not due to earlier exposure and b) daren’t risk finding out. Note we lived in the house that the cat had lived in for another 2 years but moved when DS was 4.

Minding our own business, going about life, and for reasons unknown to us this little cat arrives. She is small, fed (as far as I can see), clean, very used to humans and for some reason is also very very very determined to get into our house. We have NEVER let her in or fed her, not even once. DD (10) will stoke her if she’s playing in the garden but the cat is very affectionate and absolutely adores DD. When we come home from school Cat comes running miaowing. She spends hours every day miaowing on the kitchen windowsill or at the kitchen door. She stares at us through the door all evening and scratches at the living room door all evening (see photo!!). If DD or I go out to her she will literally jump from the wall or garden table to DDs shoulder. As I speak she is outside miaowing at the door.

I’ve been round circa 25 houses in the direction she most commonly comes from and everyone sees her but no one knows who owns her. So....

What do I do to locate her owner? I don’t want to take her to a vet, I don’t have a pet carrier for a start.

Should I put a note on a collar and put it on her? Would that work?

In light of the above, I don’t want to claim her as I am 80% sure she is owned but if she was your cat wouldn’t you want to know she was trying so badly to invade ours! I want them to know i haven’t fed her or tried to steal her!

DS has allergy testing at the end of Oct, but IF (if if if if) it turns out she’s a random, what are the chances of him being allergic to dogs but not
Cats?

Thoughts on the above, please?

Checking for a chip shouldn't be a last resort. It's quick, easy and would solve all this speculation and mystery. She sounds friendly enough. Pop her in a box and take her to a local vet, they'll scan her and go from there depending on the outcome.

I'd almost guarantee she has a loving home and has form for this and lives not very far away from you as the crow flies. We have a cat at work who has been picked up as a "stray" 17 times in a month. People just can't help but interfere whilst he's going about his normal feline business. He literally gets plucked off the street on an almost daily basis just because he's a friendly opportunist.

See if you have a friendly mad cat lady with a local scanner. I have one and scanned a cat that's been visiting me for a long time. Turns out he is owned and chipped but lets himself in and out their window when he fancies and trots 3/4 of a mile to mine
Local cat FB groups are a good place to start

Please check if she is microchipped, if you haven't already done that! (Maybe you did already check and I missed your message about it, in which case, sorry...)There is a chance that she is a much loved pet who got lost quite while ago, and wandered away from her distraught family, who are not in your immediate area. Everyone is assuming that she lives nearby and is 2-timing with you, but she could easily be a lost much-loved pet.

I think the earlier suggestion of asking a local vet to borrow a carrier in order to bring her in to check for a microchip was a good one. I don't think you can do anything until you have checked that.

It sounds to me as though she is lost or has been deliberately abandoned (we come across cases of deliberate abandonment daily!). I really think you should take her in for now. Buy or borrow a carrier to take to a vet to check for a chip and then, if no chip, see what you can do about homing her. But one step at a time.

I'm also not buying the hedgehog story. I would like to bet that the alcoholics did 'own' her but have decided she's too much trouble to look after. If she doesn't have a chip then would you be able to pay for her to be neutered?

Thanks. I can’t take her in right now catneuterer due to probable DS allergies.

I’ve just dropped the very local cat rescue place a message to see if they have a scanner. Fingers crossed.

Pouring with rain otherwise I’d put a paper collar on now. She’s currently sitting in our garage with the door open next to the warm boiler. I will be very sure she isn’t in there before I shut the door later.

I do agree about the alcoholics and maybe they just don’t want her. He did ask say ‘I think you should just have her’ after I’d explained about why I couldn’t several times. For a bloody start they have a stepped garden and no grass and I’ve never see a hedgehog around here. The story stinks. And now the bowl has moved on top of a wall - I can see it from my side window - not many hedgehogs get on the top of walls do they?

Much as though I think she’s lovely and would have her if she was available to have and the allergies weren’t an issue, I do still hope she’s actually already got a nice home and she’s just a complete hustler looking for attention.

Can you just leave the garage open until this is sorted? Any vet will scan free of charge. You just need to get a carrier (£10 from Argos) or I'm sure a neighbour could lend you one.

I'm pretty sure that if she had a nice home to go to she wouldn't be sheltering in your garage. Anyway, the first step is to get her scanned.

If a cat is unhappy they will look for a new home. There was a documentary about cats a while back. A family had a new baby and the cat took himself off every day to spend the day with an elderly gentleman. The expert said it was because the cat wanted some peace and quiet.

Before we adopted our cat, the rescue said that he was 'wandering wide and far'. They put it down to him being unhappy in a house with a kitten and a toddler.

Like you, a friend had a cat visiting every day miaowing at his door. He eventually tracked down the owner who had rehomed him. The second owner wasn't interested and told him to keep him.

Another neighbour has a new stupid and irritating dog. Her elderly cat has moved out to a new house up the road.

She's a beautiful cat and it sounds like a bit of a sad situation. Best of luck in getting her sorted.

I had similar. A cat used my garden but ran away from me. Then owners had a baby and suddenly I had a best friend.

She can stay in the garage till dark with no issues at all. Cat charity have replied that they don’t have a mobile scanner but suggest the collar then the vets. Forecast is dry for tomorrow and more hopeful people are in all day so collar on at breakfast time and 🤞🤞🤞

Do you have special SAS trained hedgehogs round your way?.

I knew giving our my number was a bad idea. I’ve now had a text from drunken arses informing me they are installing a cat scaring system in their garden. I wonder about the hedgehog impact? 🙄 😂

Anyway weather has dried up. Cat has been here all day now so the DC and I attached the paper collar. She’s still got it on and hasn’t protested too much. She’s just wandered out of the garden to the back so hoping she’s gone ‘home’ taking her message with her 🤞

Feeling very over invested and wanting things resolved.

They couldn’t even type straight. The message was over 3 attempts but only constituted 8 words.

A cat scaring system? What's that? A dog?

Well done for looking after her OP. Poor Kitty.

As she's so friendly take her to a vet to see if she's chipped. Decent owners would have had her chipped

Take it to the vets and they will see if it has a chip?

I think you should try and get your dc allergy tested then ASAP and if all is well adopt the cat.

I am allergic to cats and horses but not dogs. Cat allergy is very specific, it's to do with the saliva that they clean themselves with rather than the actual fluff I believe. I would believe that it's very possible to be allergic to dogs but not cats.

Ah frazzled thank you.

Cat has had collar on for 7 hours and so far no response.

Bollocks.

Now thinking if no response then chip search at the vets over the weekend. If a negative from all these options then I might ask the local rescue to to a temporary foster till the tests. If negative I’ll have her. If positive I’ll pay for her to be neutered and inoculated and ask them to rehome her.

Bloody damn cats and heartstrings.

It really does sounds like she's lost or been abandoned, especially since the paper collar has been on for that long. Are you feeding her? It sounds like the alcoholics have washed their hands of her.

Not sure if this is good advice.

During summer we took in a lost elderly cat temporarily as it was really frail and would not have survived outside on her own.

I took pictures and DD & I went and put ‘found’ posters up around the area we thought she could have come from.

Then I put her up on fb selling pages. As a found cat help me locate her family thing.

I did initially get a load of abuse from people not bothering to read the ad and assuming I was an evil cat trader . However I just sent out a standard response saying ‘as per the ad, I’m trying to find cats family etc’

The cat had no chip in our case, but as it was very elderly and had visible injury I managed to (after calling lots of different agencies), leave the cat at our local vets and the RSPCA, took responsibility for the vet bills incurred. Our local vets said they’d wait two weeks for the owner turned up then re-home the cat.

As it turned out, my fb ad, (once people calmed down), was forwarded to local fb lost pets pages and and I had some really amazing people set up found posters and alerts on different cat pages and the (very distraught), owner was found within four hours of my ad going live on fb. Fb had to monitor my ad first before letting me advertise as they don’t allow animals to be advertised apparently.

It was really such a relief the poor cat found her family. The owner had been distraught. She was a very loved elderly doddery cat.

She’s back. Collar still on.

Poor thing. Can you borrow a carrier to take her to the vet? Or join a local cat focused FB group and ask there if anyone has a mobile scanner (I'm surprised the charity doesn't). Thank you for caring.

Most vets are open Saturday morning, keep the texts off the neighbours saying it’s not their cat.

I’ve phoned the vets and they are lending me a carrier so I’ll have to do three trips - one to get the carrier, one to take her and one to take it back but they’re open till 1 so I’ll do it this morning. She was damp and desperate to get in!!

I’ll just have a shower then do it.

Watch her disappear when I’ve got the box!

Sorry the cat charity do have one but won’t do mobile trips due to resource and it’s shared between a several locations and I’d have to have driven quite distance to have taken her to where the scanner currently is. Vets is nearer.