Reclaiming our cat?

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We adopted our rescue cat last January. She’s a friendly and curious cat, not a lap cat except on winter evenings but likes human company.

Last few months we have barely seen her. I know she spends time with one neighbour over the back, as we can see her going in and out of a window there. I think she also has various other houses she visits. At first we were ok with this as thought it was a post winter phase, but by now it feels a bit like we don’t really have a cat (except for the responsibilities) and we all miss her especially the DC. She’s also clearly being fed elsewhere as she’s barely eating here and is looking rather solid. She was given up to the rescue for no apparent reason and I now wonder if this is why!

I’ve spoken with the neighbour we can see (who is lovely) and she’s said she will put her out more and that she doesn’t feed her. But also that there are other houses she visits.

What are my next steps? I could lock her in next time she comes back. But she will hate it. And we have the garden door open when it’s warm anyway so she’ll just scarper. I could try sending a message round the neighbours, but I don’t have everyone’s details, just a few. Would timed feeding or swapping to wet food help (at the moment she has dry food always available and eats it happily but she does like wet food more I think)?

I suppose I wonder, even if we do get her home more for a while, will she always revert to being a wanderer? Or is it possible to persuade her that this is where she lives!?

Any experiences or tips very welcome! Thanks

There's only so much you can do, unfortunately.

First step is to speak to your neighbours, you could always put a letter through the doors of those you don't know. It's fair to say its for health reasons, given that she's gaining weight.

You can also get collars which say "don't feed me".

Do what you can to make home a more attractive place, lots of cats love to be played with daily. She may also like a room where can she can sleep quietly and undisturbed for most of the day.

Tempt her with lots of lovely food and treats. Make sure people know she has a loving home and is not a desperate stray (one glance at local fb groups will show you how amazing it is that so many clearly well loved and fed cats are assumed to be strays simply because they hang around and ask for food!).

Do you have a local community Facebook group? Alternatively post some flyers around neighbouring areas.

Keep the cat in overnight feed before they leave i used to call my cats in for meals three times a day and they would come in for it the routine was out for a morning pee call in breakfast shut in until school run was over out till lunch then shut in for afternoon school run out until tea time then shut in for the night they were surprisingly easy to train

I would provide delicious food twice a day, doesn't need to be a huge amount, a pouch/small tin split into 2 meals will be fine. This should at least mean you see her regularly and can monitor her health etc. A collar if she will tolerate it asking not to feed might help.

I’d cat proof the garden. She’s obviously a social butterfly.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

I have tried a paper collar with please do not feed me, it didn’t last long! She is expert at getting off quick release collars too, these tend to last a couple of days so I stopped using them, but that might be long enough for people to read a message. I can’t believe anyone thinks she is a stray but perhaps they have “convinced themselves” this is the case, a collar would put paid to that at least.

I can send a message to those I know and ask them to pass it on via their street whatsapp (I think the people she visits are on the parallel street not ours, hence I don’t have details, but the lady I have already spoken to will do). Sounds like doing this wouldn’t be unreasonable?

She doesn’t appear for meals or when I call, I guess because she knows the dry food is always there and perhaps it’s not that exciting. Looks like we need to change that for something more timed and tempting. She does have a lunchtime treat, which she loves and used to turn up for, but these days she only appears for that maybe a third of the time. So this is another thing that makes me think someone is feeding her.

I can’t keep her in overnight as she’s not here to be kept in! I could put the catflap on “in only” at night but my fear is, after she got stuck in a few times she’d stop coming back at all she did this when we originally kept her in at night, just started staying out later and later.

Yes she has plenty of quiet places here to sleep in the day, she used to do that but think she is now choosing other people’s houses. We definitely do play with her and make a big fuss of her when she is here and in the mood.

Thanks for the ideas, I will try the collar, messages and food.

Tell everyone she's on a special diet and must NOT have anything else to eat as it could be life threatening.

This is one of the risks of letting your cat out to roam - you can't control what they do or what other people choose to do to them, and that includes who feeds them or lets them in.

I know that sounds harsh but I have indoor cats and we've had the local outdoor cats climb in through our windows and eat their food in the past!

I would never feed another cat intentionally but there's not much I can do about them being blatant thieves

cupsofcoffee I know I can’t control what she does, she’s a cat! However I don’t think this is a case of her sneaking in and swiping another cat’s food, there’s only one other cat household I believe and we know them well. Plus she often comes back smelling of perfume which suggests someone’s been stroking her a lot! I just want the human neighbours not to feed her and ideally not to deliberately let her in.

I can’t imagine making her an indoor cat, she’d hate it and would be off out any time a window was open.

I just want the human neighbours not to feed her and ideally not to deliberately let her in.

But unfortunately you can't control other peoples' behaviour.

I totally agree it's wrong to deliberately let someone's cat in your house and feed it, but people are odd and cats are very good at pretending they've not been fed for years our local Facebook page is always full of posts about 'starving' cats in gardens who clearly have homes but are chancing their luck down the road!

It's also coming into summer and people will leave their doors/windows open a lot more, allowing your cat even more access to their home.

If you don't want her going elsewhere then the only solution is either to keep her indoors or to cat-proof your garden so she can still hunt/play/climb outside but can't go outside of your property. I know it's a pain for you but unfortunately her being fed/loved on elsewhere is the risk you take when you let her out to roam for hours on end.

If I were you I’d put a friendly note through neighbours’ doors saying something like “we’re glad DCat seems to have made so many friends in the neighbourhood but we don’t see much of her these days and we miss her! Although you’re more than welcome to give her a bit of fuss and attention, please could we ask that you don’t feed her and don’t encourage her to stay in your homes, she has a perfectly good one of her own!”

Our first two cats we adopted from neighbours - both were cases where the original home was quite busy with other pets and young children and the cats preferred a more chilled home. In the case of the second cat we genuinely thought she was abandoned as she put on such a spectacular show of desperate meowing at us, it was weeks later (after she’d basically moved in with us) that we found out she’d come from a few doors down. If we’d known from earlier on that she had home we’d not have given her bed and board!

Some cats are just very sociable and greedy. Our old cat used to come home smelling of other women’s perfume, unfamiliar cooking, cigars.. he obviously had a few different houses he visited. I tried to get people to stop feeding him because he was getting fat. One neighbour said ‘but he is there whenever I open my fridge looking hungry’. Oddly enough he enjoyed his tins of tuna and chicken breast more than his cat food!

Once he got older he preferred to spend more time at home with us and once he was he was 15+ he barely left the garden.

Yes our Dcat smells of perfume quite often too OrganTransplant!

She may be seeking a quieter house, I’ve noticed the last few days that she turns up here for a brief snooze sometime between 10-2 ie when the DC aren’t here. Shame as they love her so much and are always gentle with her, but it’s definitely noisier when they are here.

I will put a collar on her as a first step, just so noone can possibly think she is a stray. And then see about sending a message round.

We’ve just rehomed a cat and we have young children - I’m trying to put the children in charge of dishing out Dreamies so the cat has a positive association with the children - we have a bit of a playtime and cat treats when they get back from school and I then try to get them to leave her in peace. But as you say, children are just inherently noisy!