We have been adopted

[SummerLovin2022]

Last year my daughters found a kitten stuck up a tree and brought her home. She had a collar and was probably about 5 to 6 months old. I told the girls that they needed to bring the cat back to where they found her and see if somebody was looking for her. As it turns out a a neighbour close to where they found her recognised her and told the girls where she lived. They dropped her back to the garden as there was no answer on the door and the neighbour told them she was always out and about and that she would be fine in the garden. We didn't see her again until last September when she appeared in our garden. The children petted her and gave her some ham and she went on her way. I seen her a few times near our house but she didn't come in. A couple of weeks later she arrived in our back garden. Again we brought her back. This happened all week but she kept coming back. It was very cold one night so we let her in and fed her. We have put notes in the owners door that we have her but have not heard back from them. We are happy to keep her and she seems so happy here. I'm just worried she will go back to her original home and it will devastate the children. She has been with us nearly 4 months now. We wormed her and gave her a flea treatment. She is booked in for top up vaccinations in a couple of weeks. Sometimes I feel like we have stole her but we have tried to bring her back home many times.

@Caramellatteplease I think you misunderstood the collar comment. I would never recommend that cats wear collars generally. I was talking about an 'is this your cat?' collar. If you have a cat that you think might have a home, and you've checked for a chip and it doesn't have one, then the way to find out is to put a collar with a message on it. It only needs to stay on for 24 hours to be sure that if it has owners they will see it and respond.

And by a note I meant one of those messages in a barrel, or a special 'paper' collar (which are actually very strong) that you can get from a vet that you can write on. We use the paper collars (I'm with a rescue) as a matter of course. They stay on until we cut them off. In fact we have to put a nick in them to enable them to rip more easily should the cat get caught on it somehow.

DCat has rarely kept a collar on longer than the time it's taken him to scarpar outside and remove it. 24 hours you'd have no chance. He also regularly stays out for longer that 24 hours in summer. But you have probably explained an odd situation we had once. Dcat was staying out a bit but coming home to puke up, something he generally does when other people feed him. We were trying to rectify the situation by attempting a collar, he walked out with one colour collar and back in later that day with a different colour collar (he went back out and came back with none) . We assumed we'd just got the colour wrong despite the box saying otherwise. I had no idea people were actually recommending you put a collar on a cat that wasnt your own!

He is microchipped. But people wont hear that bit of advice because that costs money to check with the vet. They'll just feed a cat that isnt theirs and put a collar on it because you know cat welfare.🙄🙄🙄

No one is recommending putting a collar without any sort of message on a cat that's not your own. That would be pointless. So I don't think it explains what happened with yours.

And I've never known a vet charge to scan for a microchip.

Vets don’t charge for scanning chips. I’ve taken two cats in for scanning at two different vets, no charge.

Vets don’t charge for scanning pets. I think they are obligated to scan

And also they have to keep the scanned pet safe

If the owner has not responded to the notes you've put through the door and doesn't answer the door when you knock then either they have moved or they don't want the cat.

This isn't a case of you just feeding the cat. You've made repeated attempts to talk to the owner.

Keep the cat.