A stray cat has been camping out on our back porch.  It has been sleeping on one of our patio chairs.  We've been putting food and water out for it.

This morning I went out and started talking softly to it as I do almost every morning.  But this morning, instead of getting up and walking or running away it let me pet it.  I call it it because I have not yet gotten close enough to determine it's sex.

But it seems it might become friendly enough to join the household.  It will be cat number 5 for us.  It's a very light colored cat so I think I'll call it Blondie.

Noel

Any reactions towards the other cats? 😼

Might need to be quarantined a bit to check if it has anything your other cats could catch.

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

A stray cat has been camping out on our back porch.

 

Noel, I think the word has gotten around the Roswell cat community and they are all now aware that you run a cat hotel. 👍

Worth remembering that its not uncommon for some cats to have more than one home. I wonder if any of your cats are multihousehold moggies. 

Like the one I cared for for about 2 1/2 years!  Actually belonged to a neighbor down the street.  She liked being an outside kitty and only came inside for an hour or 2.

39 minutes ago, martin-w said:

I wonder if any of your cats are multihousehold moggies. 

They know when to come home.  When I get up at 6:00AM they are all in the living room in various chairs or on top of the bookcase.

The new one in the back yard is pretty skinny and when I petter it this morning it's fur was kind of matted.  When it gets a little more familiar with my I'll check it's ears for ticks.  As soon as it allows me to pick it up I'll put it in the cat carrier and it to the vet.

Noel

Last year I saw an interesting film, "Kedi", a documentary about the stray cats of Istanbul.  It follows several individual cats who go about their rounds and interviews the people who care for them:

 

I remember one guy they interviewed talked about how he's always had cats, and one of the lessons they teach is coping with the fact that eventually beings that you love, whether human or animal, die.  When he and his brother were younger, they had a little cemetery for the cats they took care of in a corner of their back yard.  They figured what was missing from their own burial rituals for their cats were grave markers. They had seen the movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and remembered the cemetery scene.  They were Muslim, but it would be impossible for them to have tiny engraved stone markers, so they made crosses out of twigs to both honor the cats and have a cool tie-in to the movie they loved.  Eventually their father saw this and freaked out that his sons were "turning into Christians" and immediately threatened to send them to Koran school 😆

Edited March 26, 20224 yr by Mike A
spelling

10 hours ago, charliearon said:

Any reactions towards the other cats? 

I don't know.  I haven't seen them together.  Blondie's been inhabiting the porch for sometime now and I haven't heard any caterwauling or screeching.

 

10 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Might need to be quarantined a bit to check if it has anything your other cats could catch.

Too late for that now.  I don't know when Blondie arrived but it's been there for a month or so.  I guess they have been close to each other.

Noel

Reminds me  of  my  neighbours  cat couldnt  touch  it  for  weeks    but  after  feeding  it  morning  at  night  now  sits  on my  lap, its  a  out  door  living  cat  apparently he  does  the  round  goes  to each home  for  food 🙂  good  thing  about  it,   its  killing  the  rats  around  the   house  so its  being  paid  for  food  each  day.    Dont  know  for  sure  is  that i  got  possums  around  the  house  and    found  a  couple  of  baby   possums  with their  heads  removed   dont  know  if  its  the  cat  or   foxes   doing  it.  Hant  seen  foxes  around  for  ages  but  seem  them  a  few  years  ago  but not  lately

17 hours ago, birdguy said:

They know when to come home.  When I get up at 6:00AM they are all in the living room in various chairs or on top of the bookcase.

 

Yes, but when they are out roaming they may well be visiting other homes and those homeowners might believe its their pet. You never know with cats. 😁

15 hours ago, Mike A said:

Last year I saw an interesting film, "Kedi", a documentary about the stray cats of Istanbul.

 

We had a great video on TV about scientists researching cat behaviour. They followed a group of cats in a particular UK village and put cameras and tracking devices on them. It was fascinating actually. Some of them had a large territory some quite small and fascinating how they seemed to arrange their territory so that they either didn't overlap other cats territory, or they adjusted their times so as not to meet each other. 

 

3 hours ago, martin-w said:

We had a great video on TV about scientists researching cat behaviour. They followed a group of cats in a particular UK village and put cameras and tracking devices on them.

That sounds very familiar; it’s not a recent show, is it? If it’s the same one I saw, that was a totally cool show, it was broadcast here on PBS.

26 minutes ago, Mike A said:

That sounds very familiar; it’s not a recent show, is it? If it’s the same one I saw, that was a totally cool show, it was broadcast here on PBS.

Iff im thinking of the same program it was filmed just a few years back and filmed somewhere like Surrey UK, which i guess may get shown on PBS.

It was really good:)

Edited March 27, 20224 yr by icewater5

BBC Secret Life of Cats

Thankyou, thats the one😁