| Paw Colors | Points |
|---|---|
| Grey | 0-49 |
| Red | 50-149 |
| Orange | 150-299 |
| Green | 300-599 |
| Magenta | 600-1499 |
| Purple | 1500-4999 |
| Blue | 5000-9999 |
| Brown | 10000-24999 |
| Black | 25000+ |
Taming Feral Cats and Kittens (Part 2)
[This is the second part of a 2-part series. Find the first article here .]
When organizations dealing with urban feral cat colonies engage in Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) programs, they still must deal with already existing kittens, as well as those who are born more quickly than a TNR program can keep up with. That’s why rescue organizations need volunteers to socialize the kittens —teach them to accept and even enjoy interacting with humans —and prepare them to be adopted out.
In the previous article, we described the medical issues faced by feral kittens, and then learned what these socializing volunteers need to do for the cats in their care. They may appear to have done the hardest work, taking a kitten from wild to more-or-less tame. But after that initial daunting task is done, adopters shoulder a job that could require even more patience: making their new kitten feel secure and comfortable for the rest of its life.
The cat may almost have to start over, learning to feel as safe with its new human and new home as it had become with the volunteer who first tamed it. Mike Milne, of Toronto’s Annex Cat Rescue organization, suggests that people should assume the process will be slow, and if it actually happens more quickly, they’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The adopting person can probably speed things up by following some of the methods the foster volunteers used: keeping the cat in a small room at first, petting it while feeding, and introducing it to other rooms and household members very gradually. But even after the cat becomes comfortable, if it feels stressed on a particular day it could revert to feral behavior for a while. If the adopter provides a hiding place or two, where the kitten can retreat and feel safe right from the beginning, it will calm down more quickly instead of running around in increasing panic.
Above all, the new cat owner must remember that there will probably always be differences between a tamed feral kitten and those born in a domestic situation. Even when the cat feels fairly comfortable, it may retain some of its skittishness. Its human companion might have to approach it differently from other cats, sideways, with a hand outstretched and the adopter’s body held at a distance. Often the kitten will need to make its own tentative approach, and may never be an animal that a human can just walk up to and pick up as they please.
The adopter may also have to keep an eye on health issues that likely stem from the kitten’s feral beginnings. My Peaches had weak teeth, probably from her mother being malnourished, and Pan was fostered with an eye infection, and still tends to get runny eyes occasionally.
Mike also notes that a small percentage of ferals simply can’t be added to a household with existing domestic cats. These aren’t merely “shy” cats, who could become friends with the others; they could remain perpetual loners. “They may prefer cats to people,” says Mike, “but not just any cats.” So the presence of this feral kitten might affect the entire household for as long as the cat lives.
Is the process of taming a feral kitten worth all this time and effort? For cats who end up living a longer, healthier life in a safe home, it may well be. My own two ferals, both adopted through Annex Cat Rescue, love sniffing the fresh air at a screened window. But open a door, and Peaches and Pan turn the other way. It’s as though they had enough of the wide, scary outdoors, in their first eight weeks, to last them a lifetime.
They remain skittish, even after seven years, and still need to be approached carefully. Peaches loves our daily post-breakfast petting sessions (but she has to ask for them), and Pan now lets me pet him when I’m on the bed, flat and apparently non-threatening. But he lived with me for an entire year before I could touch him at all. And the two cats still flee to the closet when there is so much as a knock at the door. Visitors might be forgiven for wondering if I am really just imagining them.
But when the alarm beeps in the morning, and they jump on the bed and stomp all over me, purring and purring as I pet them, chirping at me as I prepare their breakfast, and then beaming at me in contentment while I get ready for work—oh yes. All the patience and effort is very worth it.
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I had a feral cat once there was a wild cat that gave birth under a colta sack and soon after that the mother died before she gave birth to the others there was only one left and my mom toke it in it was very sick but she toke care of it we had him for 10 years but since he was wild he never really trusted anyone exept for me I would go out and feed him and brush nad clean the dirty spots after those 10 years he wonderd into the streets and got hit by a car it was so sad and I was so terrified that I would never get the chance to meet another cat with a history that dark
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Me and my cousin are trying to catch 4 stray cats to give them nice homes how would we catch them, train them, and most importantly give them good homes?
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I don’t know how recently you asked that question here (we should ask if the date can be printed when the question is posted), but here’s what I would advise, if you still need to know.
Check with your local shelter to see if they have people who can go out and catch the cats. If they do, then you could give them the location, and they’ll have experienced people who know how to go about it.
If they don’t go out and do that a lot, they might be able to tell you the names of another organization in the area that rescues feral cats.
If you can’t get help from a shelter, find a nearby veterinarian office and go in and ask them for advice. They might have some names of an organization or two that rescues cats like this. Sometimes vets’ offices work in cooperation with these groups, to help them get the cats healthy and ready to adopt.
So I’d check with larger organizations first, to see if they can help. They’ve got the experienced people and the right tools.
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You are a true animal lover, I can sense that. We don’t lie about this sort of thing, do we? Say hi to Peaches and Pan for me,will you? they look healthy and more importantly, happy. You must have been doing your job right
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If a feral has not been socialized by 10 to 12 weeks old, the chances are pretty slim that they will ever be a good house cat. Especially if there is more than one cat in the house.
De clawing a feral cat to stop them from clawing furniture and other household items is probably the worst thing you can do. Remember that they are hunters at heart and you are disarming them. This almost always causes biting and spraying even if your feral cat is the only cat in the house. The solution to clawing everything is to provide a scratching post they can not pull over. Clawing is grooming their claws. An absolutely necessary activity that keeps their claws from becoming infected.
As for spraying, both male and female cats will spray. It is a territorial thing and it is not limited to warning other cats away. Spraying on doors and windows is often caused by nearly any kind of out door animal approaching your house. It can also be a warning to a new friend or baby that the cat sees as a threat to your attention.
And regarding inapproprate soiling of carpet and flooring, clumping cat litter is arguably the number one reason for cats not using the litter box. Cats want to cover there excrement. If they can not dig a hole in the litter because a clump of pee soaked litter is in the way, the will likely go somewhere else. The other high scorer is litter box odor especially when covered litter boxes are in play. Perfumes do not help the problem. The only way I have found to control this problem is to spray the inside of the cover with Zero Odor or Odorxit magic.
The bottom line is feral (barn) cats are tough, beautiful, resourceful and very difficult to tame and even more difficult to integrate into a multi-cat home.
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To exring@yahoo.com. Sorry, feral cats can be socialized after 12 week. It just takes fime. How do I know. I have four cats to prove it to you.
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Good article, Phyl Good!!!!
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THERE WAS THIS ONE TIME I WAS SLEEPING AND I PETTED HER THEN SHE BIT ME ON THE CHEEK.
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a
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Pet them for about a couple of miutes or so…
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We help feral cats in our area , Azerbaijan. We can’t adopt them because our landlady is against it but we do help them by making safe places for them. Just yesterday we found our beloved kitten Alpha with some skin removed from his leg, now he is bandaged and safe on our balcony and managing to hobble along. As we get to know the kittens at a very early stage we like to tame them too. I find that reading alphabet poems with a few kittens on your lap really helps but that is probably just a personal view. I really like your articles and I think that you really make people aware about feral cats. Good job!
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u are a wonderful animal lover and i will like u to watch my kittens lol
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they are so cute
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I adopted a feral kitten 14 months ago…she was born in April of 2008. When we found her she was 5 weeks old. We took her to the vet and she was healthy. Now she is 14 months old and only likes my hubby and me. We named her Josephine but call her Josie. She is afraid of everything and everyone but us..
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We have tamed 6 feral cat that were 4 to 6 months old when we got them. They had been caught in a live trap and brought to us. They do take a lot of time to get them tamed. 3 of them were easy to tame, 1 took longer to tame, the other 2 took over a year to tame but it did happen. I can pet them and pick them up and 3 of the 6 are even lap babies now. They even follow me around the yard when I am out side. as far as I am concerned it is well worth all the effort that it took to get them tamed.
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It is a good article about feral cats. Not all feral cats are on the small side. 2 of our 6 ferals are about 15 pounds. One of our other cats that we got from a friend is full grown and only weighs 5 pounds . Our first bottle baby weighed in at 15 pounds. I think that it has to do with genetics. Some are big and some are small. We had a brother and sister pair, the brother weighed 10 pounds the sister weighed 4 pounds full grown.
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hi every one
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Some friends just caught a feral kitten for me and told me it was very violent. The moment I picked it up it started purring and it is the most social kitten I\’ve ever met. It loves our other cat even though she hates it and loves sleeping on people\’s laps. He is not at all timid.
Just goes to show all cats are different.
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