How long do you give it..?

[chisanunian]

How long would you say was a reasonable time to wait after a stray cat turns up, moves into your home and shows no inclination whatever to leave again, before you say "Okay you live here now" and give it a name?

Asking for a friend - they have posted on lost and found local social media and taken the animal to be checked over by the vet and scanned for a microchip and it doesn't have one. It is showing no interest in wanting to leave and they've been caring for it for well over a week now. A neighbour told them it had been hanging around outside for a few days before that as well.

Is she already a cat owner?

Minimum two weeks, in case they are on holiday and think someone is popping in to feed it.

@Stevio had cats all her life as has her dp, but none currently. So she is a cat person, yes.

@JustBitetheKnotsOff good call with the 2-week holiday, although from its behaviour it is an indoor cat anyway and is well into middle age, so not a youngster that's escaped from somewhere I don't think.

If anyone happens to have lost a black cat in the Bedfordshire area, and which has been missing for at least 10 days, please dm me with a description. You never know.

Gosh I’d leave it a lot more than a couple of weeks! I’d feed and care for the cat and take it to the vet to be scanned for a microchip as your friend has done, but I’d give it a couple of months of posters, door knocking and social media posts before declaring the cat ‘mine’.

@Snickersnack1 it's not so much declaring the cat as theirs as such, it is that currently the cat is not microchipped, which it will have to be at some point or other as it is illegal for them not to have one, so at the time being they are stuck. They also need to give it booster jabs etc, but can't do that in case it has already been done recently.