Personal Struggle Whether To Keep A Stray Animal

For the past several weeks I have befriended a small beautiful black kitten that has been visiting several homes where I live. At first the kitten, completely black, slender and with very unusual bright chartreuse eyes, never made a sound. It would allow me to approach but neither of us was comfortable with each other.

In the past week, things changed. Kitty, as I call “it” not knowing where it came from, not knowing if it is a full grown cat or kitten (I suspect this is a kitten) and not knowing whether it is a male or female, well, we have “bonded”. I took a chance and decided to see how friendly this kitten would be if fed. We adopted a cat almost ten years ago and I was giving some thought to adopting Kitty.

I found that Kitty seemed to show up in the mornings so Sunday morning I opened a can of tuna, placed a small amount in a Tupperware container and took it outside. I sat down on our front porch and waited to see what would happen. Surprise. One very happy kitten took a sniff of the tuna and devoured it. Suddenly I found out it could meow. Kitty began to brush up against me and just like that, we were “friends”.

I was still not sure how close I wanted to get, physically or mentally, to this little cat. It had been wondering our neighborhood for weeks. But I also began to think about the approaching tropical storm and maybe, just maybe, we could find a way to adopt each other.

Kitty never left the front of our house that day but would not come inside. After a bit more tuna the next day I attempted to take Kitty into the house. Surprisingly Kitty did not mind my picking it up. I was very aware I stood the chance of getting scratched or even bitten but took the chance. However, Kitty did not want to remain in the house and made that known immediately with very loud meows and a charge for the closed door. When Kitty could not exit through the front door, it tried the sliding patio doors. This cat went nuts being inside. So, I let Kitty out. But, this kitten did not go far. It just sat down and stayed near-by.

Later that day I went to a local store and purchased a small bag of cat food, litter and a small litter pan. I figured it was time for us to decide whether we could make this work, or not. Ten years ago I attempted a similar maneuver with a neighborhood cat and lost a bet to my wife that the cat would use the litter box and stay in the house. Why not try again?

My experiment has failed. Kitty has become more willing to come into the house to get food but will not use the litter box and after about an hour gets nuts if it cannot get back outside. I have become attached to Kitty and the feeling is mutual. However the interior of our house is not its place of choice to “hang out”. Our shrubs in the front of the house have become this kitten’s real home. Kitty watches the front door and always greets me when I step outside. Kitty has become very vocal and yesterday Kitty actually stayed inside the house for about two hours in the middle of the day, content to curl up with me, purring, if I stayed in one place.

I awoke today knowing I had to make a decision. I am not home all day every day. IF we were going to make the effort to take a cat who has become accustomed to living and surviving outside and try to convert it to an indoor cat, a lot of work lay ahead. But, it is also not fair to just feed this cat outside and call it a day. My wife and I travel sometimes and can’t ask a neighbor to add feeding Kitty to the list of getting our newspapers and mail when we are not home.

I had been focusing on two options. Plan A: Go the distance with making this cat ours. Take Kitty to the vet, get it the necessary shots and license, bring it back home and keep the door closed. Even after this cat has its nails clipped (we would not have them removed) there could be quite a challenge ahead. When we adopted, actually rescued our other cat, that was a much easier transition but it had a tragic ending for us. Rambo, as he was known in the neighborhood, became very ill within six months of our bringing him into our home. We had already “put down” a pet dog we had owned for ten years and now faced putting Rambo down as well. I swore we would never go through that again. Yet, here I am asking myself what to do. Plan B: Just ignore Kitty, starting today. No more interaction, no food – tell it to “take off” – it was doing just fine until I became attached to it.

But, I have decided neither Plan A nor Plan B are going to work. I have been up since 5am with business matters on my mind and realized I was already feeling a great deal of stress about what to do with Kitty. That is when I remembered our local SPCA, a place that has an excellent reputation for placing animals in good homes. Some animal shelters do not accept stays and make you take a found animal to the County shelter. I refuse to do that. The SPCA is much farther away, in Largo, but, I made the decision this morning that I will feed Kitty today, get a pet carrier later in the day and either tomorrow or Saturday take Kitty to the best place for it to go. They will do the right thing in terms of shots, and, getting this adorable kitten adopted. My sense is if Kitty starts over with a new family after being in a shelter for a few days or even a few weeks, it can and will be able to adopt to a new environment but not if it stays in our neighborhood.

Immediately after thinking this through, about an hour ago, I felt a sense of relief. I know this cat will not be euthanized, it stands a good chance of finding a loving home and I can move on with my life, stress free again. Well, not stress free, but without a guilty conscience about this cat, to whom I have really become attached. I realized the problem was one I created and one I had to solve. Thus, that’s it. Time to take some food out to Kitty as bringing it back into the house to trying to convince this cat to stay is just folly. I now have a plan. And a clean conscience. I am going to miss this new little friend but this is the right thing to do….