I still feel guilty...
A year ago last January, I checked outside at 11.30 at night just before going to bed, and there was this tiny cat by my back door outside in sub-zero temperatures miaowing at me.
I took it in overnight (what else could I do?) and opened a small tin of tuna for it - it was ravenous.
The next day I took it to my vet's (I used to have a dog which I lost a few months beforehand) to check for a microchip, but no joy. The vet told me he was a neutered tom, and although he only weighed in at 2.2kg the vet thought he was about 2 years old.
The fact that he had been neutered and was also wearing a collar (also without id) meant that he belonged to someone.
I put up posters and called all the vets in the area, plus the local cat rescue, but no-one came forward.
After a week or so, I had him chipped and immunised, and arranged to have a cat flap fitted.
16 months later he is still with me, he is very affectionate, comes running to greet me when I come home after going out, and sleeps next to me on the bed at night.
But I still have twinges of guilt that somewhere there is a family that lost their cat. I'd feel better if I knew they had thrown him out after Christmas - otherwise why would he be out wandering? Neighbours had seen him hanging around for several days beforehand.
I'm sure I did all I could, but still feel guilty.
I took it in overnight (what else could I do?) and opened a small tin of tuna for it - it was ravenous.
The next day I took it to my vet's (I used to have a dog which I lost a few months beforehand) to check for a microchip, but no joy. The vet told me he was a neutered tom, and although he only weighed in at 2.2kg the vet thought he was about 2 years old.
The fact that he had been neutered and was also wearing a collar (also without id) meant that he belonged to someone.
I put up posters and called all the vets in the area, plus the local cat rescue, but no-one came forward.
After a week or so, I had him chipped and immunised, and arranged to have a cat flap fitted.
16 months later he is still with me, he is very affectionate, comes running to greet me when I come home after going out, and sleeps next to me on the bed at night.
But I still have twinges of guilt that somewhere there is a family that lost their cat. I'd feel better if I knew they had thrown him out after Christmas - otherwise why would he be out wandering? Neighbours had seen him hanging around for several days beforehand.
I'm sure I did all I could, but still feel guilty.
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You did all you could, and this cat is with you for a reason. Enjoy him.
I hope that if my cats ever get lost to the point that they can't find their way home and I can't locate them by any means, that they are found by someone like you who will take care of them.
Its sad for the original owners if they are missing a well loved cat but theres nothing more you can do. Its much worse to think of what might have become of him if he hadn't found you.
You did all you could be expected to do in order to find the owner. The cat was not microchipped and had no collar ID - there was no more you could do, it is up to the owner to ensure their cat can be identified if lost.
You will never know if he was abandoned (not unlikely), but he has a lovely home with you, enjoy him without guilt.:)
That is great that he greets you when you come home, I love it when my cat is sitting waiting when I open the door.
Don't feel guilty, you did all you could to find who he belonged too. It was meant to be that he found your back door that night!
What's his name btw?
I think you totally did the right thing. I dont think any loving pet owner would like to think of their loved pet freezing, hungry, lost and lonely in such a night and you did the best you could.
She sounds very happy now
I called him Harry. He seemed to be a bit of a tearaway, so named him after a well-known prince.
(They both seem to have settled down a lot since, though
Great name.
i thought that also, have no regrets you did all you could and possibly saved the cat's life, he sounds a delightful pet!
I hope you continue to enjoy each other for many years to come
I did all the postering and asking neighbours to check their sheds and no joy.
Six years later I still miss him badly and wonder what happened to him, but I'd far rather he was happy with someone like you, especially as you'd tried so hard to track down his family, than any other of the possibilities.
No need to feel guilty now Jeff.
Of course a few days later the owners turned up and asked for their cat back.
They'd been on holidays and some useless relative was went to feed the cat and had lost it along the way.
So they had to give the neutered pet back!!!
So it could be worse!
Anyway I think you did the right thing. The main thing is the cat is loved and looked after.
I would have lambasted you if you had said you left him out in the cold as you could have condemned him to an early grave. But you didn't. You took him in, took care of him and gave him a home. If you had not of took him in that night, he might not have been alive right now so you shouldn't be feeling guilty at all!
She'd been spayed but was very thin and bedraggled.
I did wonder where she's come from and if someone was looking for her but she needed looking after.
Still got her three years later.
He was grubby, un-neutered, and had a nasty cold, so I assumed he was a stray.
After the vet had treated his cold I put a Found ad in the local paper, got no response so had him neutered, chipped and vaccinated and he's been with me ever since.
I later found out on the grapevine that he had actually had an owner who lived quite near, a Waynetta Slob type who pops out a kid a year (eight at the last count!:eek:) She'd seen my ad in the paper and hadn't even bothered to pick the phone up. I heard her response had been, 'well, if someone else wants him they can have him, he's more bother than he's worth'
I like to think my little man had a lucky escape, but feel sorry for any other pet that woman gets
I took a cat in a few years back who we think had been abandoned, my husbands boss phoned me one Saturday night and asked me what he should feed a stray cat, I said fish and he went to the chippy and brought him two fish to eat!! He was a cat lover, but his wife didn't like cats, he knew I had cats and phoned me to see what to do, it was raining and didn't want to put him out when his office shut. So my husband ended up coming home, fetching our cat carrier and going back to his office to collect the cat! We advertised and as my husband is a taxi driver, he asked his customers if they knew if anyone had lost a tabby cat, nobody said anything and we ended up keeping him. We called him Cabbie as he was found at a taxi office (original I know!!) or Thug as he was a big bugger and liked to be no 1!! We took him to the vets and he had been neutered, but not microchipped he was not wearing a collar so we couldn't do anything, we also found out he was about 8 years old according to the vet, so we did think that his original owners may have had another pet or something along those lines as he was getting older.
We had him for 5 years and then I got up one Saturday morning and found him dead in his favourite place on the mat in the living room. Still miss him now and have to admit that soon after that, I had my little Fudge as I loved having three cats.
My cat wouldn't dream about trading me in for a new owner, he's spoilt.
That's quite an assumption. Lots of cats often get a case of misplaced loyalty and wander, get fed by someone else and hang around. In no way does it indicate they were badly treated in their previous homes.