I don't want a cat

G

Guy McVer

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Mar 22, 2022
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I just wanted to teach this feral neighborhood cat how it could trust people for food and shelter. That was my original intention. Over a few months, I have befriended this cat and I have been slowly conditioning it.

I have taught this cat how to play with humans, which is not a skill that comes naturally to a feral cat. They don't know how to be gentle and they don't know how to avoid breaking human skin with their claws. It takes time for them to learn restraint. They don't know what to do with a piece of string that's flung at them or dangled in their face. It's scary and awkward for them at first. It takes time for them to learn what to do. If you pick them up, they can freak out. It's scary for them to trust you. It's scary for them to not have control and to be lifted up to a height where they can be seen easily by things that could hurt them. They start freaking out. It takes time for them to build that trust. Just being held by a human is a massive issue for a feral cat.

I slowly conditioned this cat to come inside for brief periods. At first I coaxed it with food, then with affection, then with play. It was gradually able to spend longer and longer periods of time inside. After a while, it would even tolerate the door being closed. I was succeeding in teaching this feral cat how to coexist with humans. It would even let me pick it up and hold it for brief periods.

At no point did I ever intend to adopt this cat. I don't want a pet. I have had pets in the past and it was too hard for me to let go when the time came. Pets are family, but they just don't live as long as humans do. It hurts so much to lose them.

This cat hangs out around my place all the time now. It's at the point that it sits in front of my door and jumps inside whenever I open it. I have to shoo it out if I'm leaving because I don't want to trap it inside my place while I'm gone. When it comes in, it won't stay inside for too long. It goes for the door after around 20 minutes to an hour. But it wants to come inside all the time even though it leaves quickly.

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Is this my cat now? I don't want a pet. I do want to foster animals. I like the idea of that. Teaching animals how to coexist with humans as pets is really appealing to me, but I don't want to actually have pets myself. I don't want to be that attached. I can't do it anymore. It hurts too much.

What do I do here? I'm moving soon. I can't take this cat with me because I'm sure it will be too traumatic for it, but if I leave it I'm worried how it will feel when I'm gone. How will it feel? It will probably think that I abandoned it.

Help me. Do I take this cat with me? Do I drop it it off at an animal shelter? What should I do?
 
I've been around cats since I was a child in the 80's and have currently three. I prefer them to most humans, even if it hurts like hell to let them go.

You may not like to hear this, but the cat has adopted you, and not the other way around. It trusts you now to a certain degree.

Well, if you move soon, the best (but still shitty) way to detangle yourself from the situation is that you don't let it in anymore.
Feed it outside, keep it outside, as hard as it may be.

If your neighbors are up to it, ask them to feed the little bugger when you're gone. (Send them Catfood and a bottle of thank you Schnapps once a month)

It may as well be to late for that and your successors in this place will have this cat as squatter...

Full disclosure: I would not be able to do this and most likely move with the cat.
 
At the very least I can say that it's my friend. I want to do right by it. I would even take it with me but I'm worried that the moving process will be too traumatic. All it knows is this one neighborhood and I don't want to rip it away from that. I want to do the right thing and I'm scared of doing the wrong thing.
 
This is killing me. The cat just spent close to two hours laying in my arms. It even fell asleep at one point and its little paws were twitching. It's outside now. That was the longest time it has ever spent indoors. It even cleaned me. It gave me a tongue bath.

I haven't given the cat a name because I never wanted to adopt it. I still don't. I'm really worried about what's going to happen when I leave. It's a well known cat in the area and I've already talked to the neighbors. They're going to keep looking after it when I'm gone, but man... this is really killing me. I think I've become a special person to this cat.
 
If you are going someplace where the cat can be indoor/outdoor you can take it with you, if not then don't.

If you don't want to take it with you, see if you can get one or more neighbors to start feeding it now so it acclimates to them before you are gone, so the transition is less abrupt.

I adopted a feral cat from a shelter almost 2 years ago, he was about 2yo then. He still won't come sit on me but he will accept being picked up for a while, and regards me as his butler. Also, he will NOT shut up, it's running commentary all day long.

Humans domesticated dogs, but cats domesticated humans.
 
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We had such a cat. I saw it lurking in the back yard one night and started feeding her. We eventually trapped her and had her neutered. But when released, she still hung out around our yard. We developed a working relationship. She saw to it that we had no further problems with rodents, and we fed her once a day. She was never exactly "our cat", more like "co-owner of the property". She passed on a couple of years ago after living on the property for almost 16 years. I do miss my friend. Count your blessings.
 
Yeah it presented me with a dead mouse a few weeks ago. It was clearly very proud about it. Brought it right up to the front door and dropped it on the door mat, then rolled around and batted at it like it wanted me to play with it. I was honored of course and I acted really happy but inside my head I was screaming. I was going to collect it and throw it away but it had been disappeared by the time I came back. Maybe it wasn't really dead or maybe the cat carried it off somewhere else. I never did find out. There were no weird smells later, so at least I know there wasn't a decomposing mouse corpse laying somewhere that I probably wouldn't be able to reach.
 
Cat probably had some human contact at some point in its life. Otherwise it's nearly impossible to tame a truly feral cat. My friend had a cat adopt her, when she was walking her dog. She took it in and later moved, taking it with her. Cat did just fine, adapted to it's new area and it's still with her.
 
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if it hasn't been, check for clipped ear, take it in to get fixed.

either take it with you or leave it when you move - the cat will adjust to the new neighborhood or adjust to you being gone.

we got two kittens this summer - they were picked up off the streets and needed homes - one male, one female
I've never been a cat person, but my wife needed a pet after losing our dog a year ago.
I have to admin, they have grown one me. we just got them fixed this week and the poor girl has to wear a cone. you would think its the absolute worst thing that could ever happen. she just sits and stares at the floor and if I pick her up she just goes limp.

my recommendation - take the cat with you, it will enrich your life and deep down inside I think you kinda wanted a cat to start with
 
The issue with an outdoor cat. It's guaranteed to have parasites. Particularly worms. And it's $300ish for a vet visit. From worms to fleas.

There's two cats in this household. Cats I adore. Peaceful household, relaxed cat.

Even though they're murderous and manipulative critters. They're still majestic.
 
We had three cats when a little stray showed up on our doorstep in Brooklyn in the middle of a snowstorm. We were on the way out but we let her into the building to stay warm, and then when we got back we figured we might as well give her a bath. She never left. That was about 15 years ago. She was a little nuts and pretty dumb as cats go, but she was also really sweet and silly and she loved me a lot. She finally passed away last year. I was very sad and I still miss her, but I'm not sorry we took her in, our time together was awesome. The new ones are awesome too. I get not wanting to go through the heartbreak of losing them but I personally think it's worth it.

She could typically be found doing something like this:
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