This is Smokey's Journey from feral cat to house cat, or at least I hope. My thought is to photo document the journey ( hopefully successfully) on getting a wild cat to be part of our family.
Smokey was found at our back door one day this past fall (Sept 2009). He was small and still kitten like. We had been feeding our Great Dane outside and she didn't eat all her food, which the cat seemed to like. After a few weeks of suspecting something was eating Tinkerbelle’s food we actually saw Smokey.
Smokey is a gray cat with a little white patch on his chest As of this writing we are still not sure Smokey is a male, as we have not been able to handle/pet Smokey yet. But our best educated guess is he is male.
After many months of just feeding Smokey when we saw him outside, we decided Smokey really needed to get fixed. Not being sure 100% that Smokey is male I didn't want to become the crazy cat lady.
So after Christmas we decided to try letting Smokey eat his food inside our house. Our thought was if he got comfortable enough he would allow us to maybe trap him. We were pleasantly surprised that on the first night Smokey came inside out house to eat. At first it was just a few feet, but by the third day we had him coming in 30 feet or so (as long as the back door was open). We allowed him to feed while we were eating dinner not 5 feet from him, and again we have a Great Dane dog. Neither animal seemed to care the other was there.
So Saturday January 18, 2010 was trap day. After much talking between DH and myself, lots of research online, etc. I felt that if we didn't Just Do It, Smokey might end up a lost cause or too difficult to tame (my guess he is still less then a year old...maybe 10 months or so). Off to PetsMart I go with 2 of my girls. We got a dog kennel (36" L), cat bed, litter box, litter, and bowls. When we get home guess who is outside and ready to come in for his nightly feeding?
So we quickly put the kennel together, Food in bowls, old towels, and the litter box (with litter) into the cage, putting the food in the far back corner. Being the nice people we are we put the cage right at the back door so that Smokey doesn't have to go too far! He went in right away, slammed door, and Smokey is IN! Let's just say he was less than thrilled to be trapped. He is VERY strong and tried to jump out of the corners of the cage. Putting the food/water/litter in the cage made a huge mess and in hind sight, not sure it was the best idea.
We decided to put Smokey in our sun room (inside the house) because it is kind of out of the way, has a fire place for warmth, and we were not sure what to expect. I expected him to be "wild" inside the cage, but he actually just moved to the back corner and just laid there. His eyes told the story of him not really liking us about now!
The next morning, after more reading on the internet I decided that Smokey really needed to be in a more quiet place. Now I have 3 girls (8 and under) and a Great Dane, my house is not quiet. So I moved his cage to our 1/2 bath off the kitchen. It will be small enough once we can let him out of the cage to roam and not get into too much trouble. Plus it is tile in there.
Once in the bathroom came the task of cleaning out the cage.
We had put a sheet over the cage to lessen the stimulus around him, but during the night he tried to pull the sheet into the cage. His towels were wet from the water, and the cage was just a mess. So I got a wooden spoon to move the feeding bowls to the front of the cage, noticed that he didn't seem to care that I moved them so tried my luck at opening the door. WOW he let me open it (very thankful he didn't bolt for the door). So I changed out the water, cleaned the food bowl, cleaned out the litter box (which was unused). Deciding not to put the towels back into the cage until I know for sure he is using the litter and not the towels. I can't imagine a cat using the bathroom on his towel and then laying on it, so might put the towels back in there with the next cage cleaning.
So you might be asking yourself what is next. Well Monday is MLK day. I'm hoping the Vet is open tomorrow, but suspecting it will be closed. So on Monday or Tuesday I'll call the vet to see when I can bring Smokey if for a physical and to neuter him. Assuming all is fine, then comes the long task of trying to incorporate him into our home.
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