On Friday morning we woke up to a cat the looked pretty rough curled up on our doorstep. We’d never seen this cat before, and thought it was someone’s lost cat. I went out and placed some wet food, calling the cat. The cat didn’t come, when I called but as soon as I walked away he ran over and absolutely devoured the wet food. Our neighbor’s dog came outside and the cat ran away. My husband and I left for work, but had posted pictures of the cat to some different social media apps trying to see if someone had lost their cat.
We got tons of people reaching out saying they would spread the word, and lots of recommendations to try and live trap it since it was going to be freezing over night. We were thinking this wasn’t a feral cat, we thought it was a lost pet struggling to survive.
Husband and I set a live trap that evening and put some tuna in it. Within an hour or 2 the same cat came back and was in the humane trap. We took him inside. Set him up in a separate safe room (we have 2 other cats as well). He wasn’t hissing or aggressive. Just looked sad and scared. We opened up the trap for him and got him water, food, and a litter box. Left him for the night.
Saturday morning, we went to check on him and he had dried liquid diarrhea all over his bottom and belly plus the room. He We took him to an urgent care vet, and asked if we could see if he had a chip and to get him some medical care. Mind you we did not pick him up, but he walked into the cat carrier when They checked and told us no chip- because we didn’t know if the cat was vaccinated or not, and because he got scared and feisty in the back, we were told he needed to be sedated for an exam + care and to get him cleaned up.
My husband and I are huge animal lovers, and agreed to anything and everything to help this poor kitty.
When we went to pick him up, we learned he was sick with round worms, was super dehydrated, underweight, had fleas, was FIV +, and was most likely feral. They had shaved a ton of mats and dried diarrhea off of him. Rehydrated him, gave him a rabies vaccine, treated for fleas, gave him an antibiotics shot, and sent us home with special food for his diarrhea and meds to treat the round worms. They also told us he wasn’t neutered- he was a really young Tom.
We asked what the most humane thing would be since it felt wrong to take him out of his territory if he was a feral cat. Plus FIV and wasn’t neutered. We got linked up with a TNVR ( TVNR?) program and documents to take with him to show he was already vaccinated. Vet recommended our garage with a heat source and some hay and blankets might be more comfortable for him than inside our house. So that’s what we did. Got him all set up. Gave him his first dose of the round worm meds and special wet food. We kept the cat carrier in the garage and put blankets and towels in and around it. Also set up a small space heater.
Plan was to keep him for a week to finish his meds and try to get him neutered.
A few hours ago, a gust of wind blew opened the side door on our garage (the latch apparently is broken) and he got out and ran off. He did seem to be feeling a lot better.
I’m bawling my eyes out heart broken and feeling worried that we may have just traumatized this poor cat. He was a long hair cat that had most of his fur shaved off (the vet took off all the mats and dried diarrhea). I feel awful because he still has round worms and now doesn’t have all his fur to protect him in fights or keep him warm. I just feel like it was all for nothing and he’ll die from a cat fight or from the cold.. we never got him neutered either..
Sorry I know this is long.. I just don’t know wha else to do. I thought I was helping someone’s lost cat and instead I traumatized some poor feral cat with half his fur shaved off. Just needed somewhere to talk about it.
EDIT: Thank you so much everyone for listening and helping me with what to do next. Your comfort and kindness means the world. We’re gonna keep fresh food and water for him + garage open in case he decides to come back for shelter.