Cat Thief WWYD?

[NowCatless]

Our cat has been spending longer and longer away from home and it’s reached the point she has stopped coming home at all. I’ve known for some time that she’s been visiting other houses. I carried out some investigation and found out where she’s been spending most of her time, and spoken to them.

They’ve been feeding her all kinds of treats (fresh fish and chicken etc), letting her sleep overnight in their house etc. Basically she’s living with them.

I have said that they either need to take on ownership of her officially or stop feeding her/letting her in. The problem is they don’t seem keen on either option!

I don’t really know what to do!

Keep her in for a bit - not sure, that might backfire.

Treat her like royalty and give her better treats

Tell them she’s got fleas/lice/other, and treatment means she mustn’t be stroked.

Follow her to neighbours and at strategic place, do the water pistol trick (OTT I know, but I don’t know how determined you are)

I’ve had another thought. If the cat is gone for a few days, pop around with the paperwork for insurance, vet records, microchip details.

Act like you are not going to let it go. Pop copies through the door. It’s a bit of a bluff, but might put them off.

Honestly I’d be quite happy if they would make it official, but I don’t know how keen they are on being responsible for her long term.

We’ve tried locking the cat flap to keep her in for a few hours (she was tending to come in early morning and then leave again so we didn’t even see her) but with the hot weather it’s been impractical to keep windows closed so she just gets out. And we’ve tried stepping up the dreamies and posh cat food to no avail.

I think the nuclear option would be lock her in for 2 weeks. She would hate it but that’s what we would do if we moved house, so is it any worse?. But we she does need to actually come home first to that and she seems to have stopped altogether!

Or else we just give up on her, cancel the insurance and unregister her microchip…but that seems horribly irresponsible!