Romanian rescue cat worrying behaviour

[susie1984234]

Myself and my partner adopted 2 female cats who were rescued from living on the streets of Romania.
Cat 1 (2 years old) is showing some worrying behaviours. Both are very anxious about food and terrible scroungers, Cat 2 (1 year old) is less so but still a bit of a scavenger.

Both love to go outside, they are avid mouse hunters and have a great time but Cat 1 also seems to be very attracted to cars - going so far as to walk in front of moving traffic and sit in the middle of the road. I am terrified she gets hit. We also found her yesterday inside of the engine of a neighbours car and found out she has been approaching people in the area shouting loudly and acting erratically:/

Has anyone else experience with former streetcats or can offer some advice?

That is quite unusual behaviour, I'd be considering whether she has some sort of cognitive decline and talk to the vet about it.

As both cats were street cats for quite a while I would say the scavenging is an ingrained habit that will fade with time.
Re wandering up to random cars and meowing...these ex street cats were probably fed from cars in Romania before being rescued.
Similarly, they possibly slept in car engines whilst living on the street.
These are ingrained habits that will take time to break.

Get your pets tested for toxoplasma gondii. God it’s bad enough when people are rehoming imported dogs, I hadn’t realised people were doing it with cats now!

See also a list of other potentials to look out for http://apha.defra.gov.uk/documents/surveillance/diseases/imported-dog-disease-for-dog-and-cats.pdf. Those behaviour changes can be an indicator of the dumb form of rabies.

UK rescues are overflowing with cats, seems madness to import.

Totally, it’s incredibly shortsighted, especially because imported pets can then spread diseases to local pets as not everything can be excluded through quarantine.

I'm not in the U.K. I'm in mainland Europe, we didn't import the cat they were rescued from a local charity

Rescues from abroad from reputable charities, have pet passports detailing medical history, and full vaccination history and have a final check up before they travel. They are examined again by UK vets at point of entry, before they are released for onward travel. They aren't just grabbed from the streets and shoved in a van. The rescue situation in the UK is complicated, with the adoption process for many prospective owners being impossible to navigate. Plus the fact that animals in many countries, are suffering in appalling conditions and need some form of support. I adopted from abroad and I don't regret it for a second.

I'm looking at getting a cat from abroad because I've been turned down by UK rescues for completely ridiculous reasons, usually after they've gone on about how many cats they have in rescue.

How long were they in the rescue before being rehomed?

A lot of what you describe is pretty typical behaviour of street cats in Romania.

Yes I think that's definitely the root cause of it. The younger cat doesn't do it but she wasn't on the streets for as long

They were in the shelter for 2 months before we re homed them. Both were quarantined and have passports, fully vaccinated so I'm not concerned on that front.

@Puppylucky @susie1984234 “Non-endemic disease:
It is important for owners to realise that pet travel arrangements are primarily focused at stopping imported zoonotic diseases entering the UK. No statutory provision exists to reduce the likelihood of animals being exposed to diseases that are currently not endemic within the UK.” Source https://www.vettimes.co.uk/article/pets-abroad-what-are-the-risks/ The op isn’t in the uk so fair enough but I stand by my point that people importing street pets from the continent are putting other people’s pets at risk in the uk.

I'm not sure what an article about the disease importation disease risk from dogs poses,has to do with cats. Cats do not live in packs in the same way dogs do . Cat colonies are far looser, and most of the rescue cats that I have seen are at risk,because for whatever reason they have been excluded from the colony. As cats don't live communally in the same way disease transmission is very different.

err,fairly obviously it’s the same principle but obviously articles are less common about imported cat risk and cat specific diseases seeing as far fewer people have historically imported street cats from Romania!! The guidance from defra details diseases affecting both cats and dogs but as the vet article states, not all diseases are either tested for or observable until the animal presents with symptoms. Still a stupid idea to import seeing as many uk rescues are full and not even able to house cats in this country.

But it's the rescue's own fault they're full in many cases. I'm so tired of this guilt trip, when there are threads upon threads here of people being rejected by cat rescues for spurious reasons. I found oversees rescues to be kind and conscientious about finding the right owners, but crucially also highly motivated to get the cats out of a horrible situation. My cat was adopted from the UAE, after being dumped in the desert. He literally wouldn't have survived, if his his initial rescuers and then us hadn't stepped in.

I agree with the point about some pet rescues in the uk appearing to be more keen on hoarding animals than rehoming but that doesn’t make it ethical to adopt from abroad. Absolutely ludicrous to import a pet from the uae.

No it's not ludicrous - just ask Elton who is now living a life he couldn't have imagined. Giving him the life he now has, is one of the things that will get me into heaven!

Ferals often live in colonies and unneutered/unspayed cats are a known risk for having and spreading diseases through the mating process (same here in UK, anyone who lets their intact cat out is risking not just pregnancy for females but massively increased risk of cat diseases). Mating is the big risk and there's a lot of that in feral colonies.

I really don't believe it's that hard to adopt from a UK rescue.

See my point above about rescue cats being the ones who have been excluded from colonies. The TNR teams will differentiate between hard core ferals and the cats who are struggling or excluded and their rescue efforts focus on the latter

You may not believe it but that doesn't make it not true.

This happened to me, because I lived on a main road and had a flat they said no. I bought two cats instead - who both died at an old age, having had a lovely life.
you hear all this crap about the homes over flowing, but the criteria to actually adopt is nonsense

I really don't believe it's that hard to adopt from a UK rescue.
It is very difficult in my experience, and so disheartening when you know you could give a cat such a good quality of life.

As a 5 times cat owner, I was patronisingly told by Cats Protection that I was looking for the ‘perfect family cat’ and that ‘unfortunately everyone is so you probably will be disappointed.’ This was solely based on the fact I had two young children at the time - had they cared to ask further they would have discovered that we had adopted FiV cats, hyperthyroid cats, and one cat with cancer, all of whom were loved and respected by said young children.

Luckily I found a smaller local rescue from whom I’ve subsequently had another 2 cats (one with kidney failure and another with a skin condition). Some of the rescues are absolutely ridiculous and their animals are much worse off as a result (sorry for the derail @susie1984234!)