Here's what happened to me when I 'adopted' a stray cat and why I recommend...
thinking twice before you feed a stray cat. You could just kill it with kindness.
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| Don't be fooled by that cute exterior...inside is a monster waiting to get out. |
When the sleek black tomcat turned up at
the back door, he had no idea his soulful miaowing would one day result in his
downfall. My daughters fell on him in raptures, petting and fussing over him as
if he were a baby. The first thing they wanted to do was bring him a saucer of
milk and watch that pretty pink tongue lapping contentedly until he was full
and could lie sunning himself on the warm cobble stones.
Being teenagers, they wouldn’t listen when
I told them he already appeared well fed and was most likely someone else’s pet.
Some cats habitually patrol the neighbourhood looking for bonus meals and this
chap didn’t look down and out.
“We shouldn’t feed him as he will clearly
be going home for his supper later,” I warned to no avail. We did attempt to
find his owner, but as no one seemed to have seen him before, we assumed he was
lost or he’d been dumped. We should have tried a little harder.
Alas, for him, we continued to place
enticing bowls of leftovers before him whenever he turned up. Eventually he
became ‘our’ cat, spending more and more time in the garden and even strolling
through the house when the fancy took him. Not that he was ever truly
domesticated or clingy, but we put his habits down to being a tom and therefore
a little bachelor-style roaming seemed only natural. He’d disappear for days at
a time before we’d hear him in the early hours letting us know he was back.
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| Bill Clinton fusses over White House pussycat Socks |
We lived on the edge of town in a mixed neighbourhood
of new builds and large properties that were slowly being diced into suburban
blocks. So we guessed our tomcat was prowling the pine forest behind the house
or the swampy land at the bottom of the garden, sleeping rough in the bulrushes
like a wayward Casanova. Perhaps he even had other “homes” he visited when he
wasn’t with us, because he was certainly well fed and constantly growing. Every
time he showed up he looked fit and healthy and just that little bit bigger
than last time.
Then we noticed his behaviour becoming more
intemperate. He hissed at the Labrador with whom he’d once been playful
friends. He leaped on the table to snatch food when we were sitting down for a
meal. Increasingly aggressive, he swiped food from a young visitor’s breakfast
plate. Our cat was becoming scary. He was also going walkabout for longer
periods; a few weeks might go by before he strolled up the driveway and plonked
himself down on the back step.
Then our ducks started to disappear one at
a time. The geese followed and had to be put down when we found them injured
with broken wings. Foxes took the blame. Even though our tom was displaying bad
behaviour and killed small birds from time to time, that was to be expected, but
we never took him for the killer of these larger birds.
Territorial displays are all very well, but
when he urinated on the beds, something he wouldn’t have dreamed of when he
first purred his way into our lives, alarm bells rang. He arched his back and
screeched when he was chased off the kitchen worktop. He was becoming downright
feral.
Concerned he was also becoming dangerous to
know, we described his conduct to the RSPCA. After a random search of their
records, the real owner, who lived on the far side of the pine forest, was
located. Two years previously they’d called in the hope their pet had been
handed in. This family were thrilled to collect him and take him home where he
belonged. Under instruction from the RSPCA to keep the cat inside for two weeks
to reorientate him, and help him reacquaint his bond with his old family, they
did their best.
A week later, he’d done a runner and in the
early hours woke us with that familiar miaowing which sounded just like: I am
so hungry, nobody loves me, please feed me. This time we knew better and called
the owner to collect him once more. She reported his changed demeanour and how
they had struggled to cope with him.
‘At first he seemed to love being home and
just lazed about and let the children play with him. Then he urinated on the
beds. Now he hisses fiercely when shooed off the worktops. This cat has changed
personality. To tell the truth, if he runs away again, I won’t be bringing him home.’
He turned up next when a wedding supper and
dance were being held in our garden. The cat had upset many an outdoor meal as
we chased him off the table and away from the food. There was no way he was
going to spoil the wedding, so I rang the owner again, to please come and
collect the cat, which she did.
We heard later she’d taken him straight to
the RSPCA with a command not to bring him home again. Did he meet a grisly end?
We don’t know for sure, but it is very possible because he was no longer a cat
suitable as a pet. They say domestic cats do not become feral. A feral cat is
one that hasn’t grown up with human contact. But the call of the wild was so
instinctive, our cat couldn’t say no. Clearly he loved the midnight prowling,
hunting, feasting and mating as the fancy took him. But it was by bringing the
manners of the wild into ours and his owners’ homes that showed he would never
be domesticated again.
Perhaps if we had never fed him that first
saucer of milk, he would not have turned into an unmanageable oaf. By doing so we had inadvertently taken away a
beloved pet which the children had missed desperately. We had encouraged him to
stay away from his real home by feeding him every time he turned up. We were
naive in failing to connect the disappearance of the ducks and geese with his predatory
aggression.
You have to be cruel to be kind is a maxim
to bear in mind next time you are tempted to fuss over or feed a cat that
wanders into your garden or rubs against your legs in that cute, vulnerable
way. Better to tell him to shove off home and don’t show his pretty face around
here again. Better for him, anyway.
