The Socialization Toolbox: How to rehabilitate stray and semi-feral cats.

Socializing feral and semi-feral cats is not as difficult as many are led to believe. So many assume that it is an arduous, time consuming process, there are very few who are willing to try. In fact, it is neither. It can be a lengthy process, but lengthy does not equal time consuming. My semi-feral fosters take up no more of my time than my domesticated cats do.

This guide is mainly geared towards fosters and potential fosters. It's focus is on rehabilitating strays and semi-ferals that have already been trapped. I chose this as the specific focus for a very simple reason. There is a wealth of information available on the net on how to successfully trap a stray or semi-feral, but there is very little in-depth information available on rehabilitating with the intent of getting the cat ready for adoption. 

Photographer tells story of doomed shelter dogs

Photographer Tou Chih-kang has been recording the last moments of canines at the Taoyuan Animal Shelter in Taiwan for two years. He has captured the images of some 400 dogs, most of which were pets abandoned by their owners. To him the work is distressing, but he's trying to spread a message of responsibility. Read more about Tou Chih-kang's story.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/photographer-s-crusade-to-save-doomed-shelter-dogs-slideshow/

Hiro's almost odyssey

It's been a while since my last post. Internet troubles have kept me offline for the last few weeks.
Shortly after my last post, I had a good friend from Toronto contact me about possibly adopting Hiro.

I've mentioned that my partners in crime were housing him at great risk to themselves since their lease stipulates that they cannot have cats. It was coming down to crunch time for them - they weren't going to be able to keep him for much longer without being discovered. But we still needed more time while I negotiated with my friend to make sure he knew what a large project he was potentially taking on. So after double checking with the vet to make sure that I wasn't endangering the health of the brood or my fosters, I made space for Hiro here at the home for wayward cats in the temp sanctuary.


We'd had everything all arranged to transport him to my friend in Toronto. They were completely willing to work with him, even knowing that he would not be an easy socialization. But at the last minute, I made the executive decision to release him. I had been observing him carefully now that he was under my direct care, and had come to the sad conclusion that he was just too feral. He's tolerant of those of us that are caring for him, but only barely. I've been feeding him for months.... one of the other couples has been feeding him for over a year, and he still doesn't trust either of us enough to come any closer than it takes to set food down for him. =/ Not to mention that he'd already proven himself to be difficult to trap and quite the escape artist. I was terrified that he would escape from my friend's place and find himself lost, in a city he doesn't know, with not a tooth in his head and a bum leg. And I knew that if he did ever escape, he'd be impossible to recapture. And so, with an admittedly heavy heart, I made the decision to release him again. 

He was so depressed when we had him inside, all the light had drained from his eyes. The joy and hope I saw in his little face when I finally brought him back outside to release him was almost heartbreaking to see. But it was the light returning to his eyes that told me I was making the right decision in releasing him. 

Those of us that have been caring for him (myself, my partners in crime, and the other couple mentioned above) have all agreed to continue to do so. We will make sure he has plenty of food and water, and will be purchasing a couple of cat shelters so that he has a place that is protected from the elements that he can call home. And should he ever require further medical care, we will make sure that he gets it. We're not giving up on him just because he has proven himself to be too feral for rehabilitation. If anything, we will be working harder than ever to make sure that his life is as comfortable as possible. He is our little hero - we can do no less.

Meet the newest foster!

My newest foster, Shadow, was rescued about 2 years ago and until joining the home for wayward cats, was living with an Italian couple. His rescuer writes "They are wonderful cat lovers and have several in their home. But Shadow basically lived in a back room in the rafters for quite a long time. In the last 6 months he has ventured into the living area with the other cats. He has no confidence and is simply scared of people, except for his foster family."

Fantastic news!

Wee Hiro had his vet appointment yesterday, and it went better than I could have hoped for. He ended up seeing my personal vet, the always amazing Dr. Andréa Bravo. She agreed with my assessment that his leg was either malformed at birth, or when he was a kitten. But most importantly, she determined that it does not appear to be causing him any pain, which is fantastic news as it means it is not necessary to amputate!

He does have an incredibly wicked case of Rhino, complete with lung congestion. But he was given a shot of antibiotics (Convenia) which will last for 3 weeks and should clear it right up. It also turns out the poor bugger has not a single tooth in his head. He was neutered and had what was probably his first bath ever - which was great since he was more than a little ripe. Several of the vet techs came out to the front to see what was causing the smell when we first brought him in, and there were more than a few jokes cracked about his wonderful aroma.

He is currently recovering with my partners in crime. It was a close call, but they managed to successfully sneak him in without notice. He is doing amazing and is responding better than hoped to the love and care they are giving him. I am now hopeful that he can be rehabilitated.

But now the rush is on to find him a longer term foster and hopefully, a forever home. Sadly, this will prove difficult as it is high kitten season, meaning all of the local rescues are swamped. But we've come this far.... we can't give up now!

Trapping success!

Turns out the trapping tips I received were definitely the ticket. In the last 24 hours, I've managed to trap 10 of the neighbourhood cats. And as luck would have it, Hiro was number 10!

Hiro update

Well, I have some good news. Not great news, but it's promising at the very least. He showed up in my yard this morning (almost 5am) and although he didn't quite make it far enough into the trap to set it off, he did go in pretty far. Seems the trapping tips I was given are working. (I also managed to trap 5 different cats throughout the night, so I know the technique is sound :P)

Even though I didn't manage to trap him, this is still a very positive development as it means that he is not linking yesterday's ordeal with my yard (which is where it all began), so we still have a very good chance of trapping him here. And the fact that he was willing to investigate the trap is also positive, since it means I've now got a better handle on what to tempt him with. (Turns out the magic ingredient is catnip.)

So, while it may not be the best news, it's still certainly promising news. And that's better than nothing. 

Jasper update

I think the thing that amazes me the most about Jasper is his genuine desire to be friends with everyone here in the home for wayward cats. Although he is easily the biggest cat here, he is quite content to take a lesser role in the hierarchy and often goes out of his way to look out for the younger cats (Joni and Mina included) before tending his own interests. This is best seen during mealtimes, where he will patiently (and not at all fearfully) wait until the little ones have started eating before he does. You can almost see him doing a mental count to ensure they're all there and that they all have access to their food before he's content enough to begin eating.

I've been promising his rescuer that I would post a video of him playing with the little ones, so I snagged this one of them playing with the laser pointer the other day. You can really see the size difference between them. Even wee Durango, the youngest of the lot, is bigger than my two mini cats, Joni and Mina. But Jasper is huge in comparison. It's so ridiculously cute to watch them playing together, I honestly don't know how I stand it. ;)

His progress is best described as slow but steady. He gains just a fraction more confidence with each day that passes. He's still painfully shy, and unlike Durango, he still runs and hides when the doorbell rings. But he is still making progress, which is the important part. :)

Durango update

Wee little Durango is progressing in leaps and bounds now thanks to the influence of the brood. Although he still runs away if I move towards him, he has gained enough courage to stay in the room when I'm moving around and no longer runs and hides when the doorbell rings.

He's also starting to feel more secure about being in my lap, and we've had a few occasions now where he climbs into my lap and settles down for chin scritches when I'm sitting on the floor. But I think his biggest step forward this week was when he decided to join Kitty and Joni and I on the couch while I was knitting / watching movies.

d'awwww

It took him almost an hour of sitting on the arm of the couch, watching us all, before he worked up the courage to join us, but join us he finally did. Surprisingly there were no complaints from Capt. Crankypants (aka Kitty). Even more surprisingly, Durango was far more interested in settling down for a snooze than going after my knitting. ;)

Update on Hiro

With the help of my new partners in crime, we managed to catch wee Hiro this evening, but unfortunately he escaped again. Turns out he can run quite fast for a cat in his condition. Much faster than the three of us had anticipated at any rate.

The good news in all of this is that we've discovered that he has more caregivers than we originally thought. There's 3 or 4 of us that are doing our best to make sure he stays fed. And our neighbours were surprisingly sympathetic as we raced around the lane trying to catch him. Not one person refused when we asked permission to enter their yards after explaining our goal.

Although it was devastating to lose him after successfully catching him, I am still hopeful that we can catch him again with the trap. Thanks to the tips I received from C4P's more experienced trappers, he finally started showing at least minor interest in the trap earlier this evening. And the three of us have agreed.... we're not giving up. Even if it means we need to stake out that alley every night, we will do so for as long as necessary. He deserves nothing less.

Hiro

Hiro is one of the many cats that comes to visit my backyard. But unlike many of the backyard kitties, Hiro is a stray. And although the photo below doesn't show it, one of his back legs is mangled.

He's willing to sit quite close to me when eating, but if I so much as twitch a muscle, he gets ready to run.
There is a covered trap not inches away from him when this photo was taken. But no matter what kind of tempting yummies I put inside, he avoids it like the plague.

Whatever happened to his leg, obviously happened some time ago as there is no visible wound. The leg itself is bent upwards along his body and is considerably smaller than his other hind leg, adding to my suspicion that whatever happened, it was when he was much younger. It might even have been deformed at birth.

I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to trap him for about a month now as his overall health is taking a turn for the worse. I suspect he may have full blown FeLV based on the fact that he is constantly sick and the lymph nodes in his neck are obviously very distended and are different sizes.

The last few weeks have seen quite a lot of heavy, flash flood type rainfall here in Montreal, and the lane that runs behind my house is so flooded, it's practically a river. In a normal week, there are upwards of 16 kitties that take turns hanging out in my backyard (most are family pets), but over the last few weeks, there's been almost no one. And although Hiro was starting to make daily appearances prior to the rain, I hadn't seen him at all in over 3 weeks. Given that he is in such rough shape, I feared the worst.

But thankfully, he's still with us. He showed up on my back porch tonight, desperately hungry and a little skinnier than I'm used to seeing him, but still fighting to survive. I have promised him that I will do everything in my power to help him. After all, he is my little hero.

UPDATE:
Synchronicity, thy name is .....
By amazing coincidence, another kind soul contacted C4P early this morning about a cat matching Hiro's description. Turns out she has worked with C4P in the past. As if that's not coincidental enough, it turns out we're on the same block & her back yard faces the very same lane way mine does! It's definitely my wee Hiro! She has also been feeding him, and is working to try to trap him as well.
I am so ecstatic to have a partner in crime for helping poor Hiro, I'm almost at a loss for words. Looks like the universe listened to my heart felt promise last night. More as develops!

Señor Fluffypants and his faithful sidekick, Big Foot

All of the cats at the home for wayward cats have silly, affectionate nicknames. Kitty is Kittyboo, Gypsy is Princess, Mina is Monsterbutt & Joni is Little Baby. Jasper and Durango have recently earned their nicknames, and are now known as Señor Fluffypants and Big Foot respectively. ;)

Both boys are positively blooming now that they're back out of quarantine and with the brood full time. And it is entirely due to the influence of their foster sisters, little Mina and Joni. My two mini cats are both incredibly social and outgoing little bundles of love and the boys are now picking up their social cues from them.

Evo cat food - buyer beware

I've been feeding everyone here at the home for wayward cats Evo dry and wet food for just over a month now. The dry, I received as a generous donation and the wet I was purchasing on my own. I felt happy with it, knowing it was a grain free product and that online reviews were overall positive.

However, in the last month, I have been dealing with a lot of mild digestive issues in almost all of the cats. Everything from poopy bum to loose stools to the occasional vomiting. Not to mention poor Kitty and his mouth ulcers. With the exception of Kitty and his mouth, no one cat would show symptoms for more than a day at a time, but all of the cats have experienced at least one of the symptoms over the course of the month. Because it was so inconsistent, and there were no other signs of being ill (no dehydration, activity levels were the same, everyone was bright eyed and bushy tailed, etc) I had assumed it was due to the stress of having so many new arrivals. That is until I randomly found this article this morning.

http://petfoodtalk.com/catfoodreviews/evo/

If you only read the info on the left hand side of the page, Evo gets glowing reviews, pretty much across the board. However, if you take the time to read through the reviews and discussions section on the right side of the page, a different story emerges. Evo was (unbeknownst to me) bought out by Proctor & Gamble about a year ago and as far back as last September, you can find complaints about the visible change in the quality of the food. Most tellingly, many of the posts from that point onward deal with cats suffering from vomiting, diarrhea, and food allergies causing mouth pain.

Hmmm... that doesn't sound familiar at all.

Looks like it's time to switch everyone back to Acana.

ChipIn for Cause 4 Paws

Due to a recent spat of serious health issues in some of their rescue cats, Cause 4 Paws has created a ChipIn to help defray the costs. Please... consider contributing what you can. Every little bit helps!

Cause 4 Paws ChipIn

Weekly update 5.18.12

Whew! Busy times! Its been a week of ups and downs in the home for wayward cats. Since there's something to update for just about everyone, but not enough to qualify for individual posts, I'm combining them into one big post for this week.

My semi-feral boys

Durango's new favourite place to hang out is on the small filing cabinet next to my desk. He is entranced with my computer screens, and watches what is happening there intently. He's still quite shy about being touched, but did jump onto my keyboard earlier and allowed me to hold him and pet him for a few moments before indicating he wanted to be put down.

His progress has been much slower than I had hoped. But he is progressing, so I am pleased.

Jasper has finally reached the stage where he will allow me to hold him still during our grooming sessions. Which certainly makes grooming a little easier to accomplish. ;) We're still getting him used to having his sides touched, which means we haven't really been able to get rid of any of the mats on his sides yet, but he is allowing me to touch him there with more pressure than before. So there's that at least. I don't have any new pictures of him available, since he prefers to show me his bum rather than his cute little face, but we've managed to get rid of a great deal of dead hair from his ruff and upper body, and the difference in size between his front and back halves is quite noticeable now. He's still a big boy, but not nearly as chunky as he initially seemed when he first entered my home. ;)

Multi-cat households - How to effectively introduce your new cat to your resident one.

So you've decided to adopt another kitty. Bravo! All a twitter with excitement, you bring the new little bundle of fluff home, and place him down in the middle of a room so he can meet your resident cat. And lo and behold, your otherwise sweet and pleasant resident cat has turned into a spitting, hissing ball of claws and fangs. Or maybe it's the newcomer that's being aggressive. Either way, you're now stuck trying to play referee between two (or more) very angry cats.

Sound all too familiar? Perhaps you're now regretting your decision to adopt another cat. Perhaps you're even contemplating returning the new cat since it's obviously not working out. 

What if I were to tell you that such drastic measures aren't necessary? That it is possible to successfully, and most importantly, peacefully integrate your cats? Even if initial mishaps were made, and the cats have already come to blows... it is still possible to create peace once more. They may never be cuddle buddies, but at the very least, they can and will live in harmony.

And three becomes four.....

So I know that as a foster mom, the goal is to provide my fosters with a loving, safe space until they find their forever homes. It's not supposed to be an excuse to acquire more cats. :P But I have to admit, I have fallen hook, line and sinker for little Joni. Most importantly, it's obvious while watching them all together that the brood feels the same way.
Mina adores her and the two are rarely apart. Gypsy has taken on the role of surrogate parent and can often be found grooming her or gently playing with her - something she has only ever done with her own babies. Even Kitty, the resident grump has taken a shine to her sweet little face. She is incredibly sweet natured and is adorably patient when I clean her snotty little face (poor baby still has a cold), or tend to her daily grooming needs. All in all, she is the perfect addition to my feline family and it would be heartbreaking for all if she were to leave.

How could I say no to that sweet little face?

And so, Joni has earned herself a place on the Cast and Crew page, in our home and above all else, in all of our hearts. Welcome to your new life babygirl.

Durango's first petting

As predicted, Durango has started asking for pettings. Well... in a manner of speaking. He still hasn't quite figured out how to actively ask, so he does it passively.
He waits until Jasper comes over to be pet, and while I'm petting him, Durango rubs up against Jasper on the opposite side. Then when Jasper moves away, Durango just kind of stands there, as if he's waiting for me to pet him. He lets me run my hand along his back a few times before his nerve wears out and he scoots off again. It may not sound like much, but considering how timid he is, I am pleased with his progress.

He did get up on the bed and snuggle down against my leg the other night, but I'm still not 100% sure he realized I was there. I have a tendency to bury completely under the blankets when I sleep, and my comforter is quite fluffy, so its entirely possible he was just oblivious. Either way, we were both comfortable, and I didn't want to startle him away, so I simply enjoyed the moment until sleep took me.

Jasper is his usual, amazing self. He's started to demand pettings now, often coming over and dipping his head as if he was headbutting me until I sit on the floor with him to give him scritches. He's becoming more and more comfortable with me petting his sides, which is fantastic news. Given that he is such a long haired beauty, I really want him to enjoy being groomed in the sensitive areas as well.

Durango and Jasper - fast friends and boon companions

Durango and Jasper have become best buddies, and it constantly makes me smile to watch the two of them together. Both are coming out of their shells at lightning speed now, and there is very little, if any, diving under the bed if I enter the room unexpectedly.

Jasper worked out another big knot throughout the night and true to form, ran over to the mirror to check himself out after I snipped the last little part that was keeping it connected to him. I am totally going to have to try to catch a video of him doing this. It's utterly hilarious.

Durango has quite obviously adopted Jasper as his surrogate parent and comes to him frequently for affection and grooming. Even sweeter is that Jasper has just as obviously accepted this duty and takes very good care of him - though he does have a tendency to steal Durango's wet food if he is still eating by the time Jasper is done his. ;) Durango is still too shy to ask me for affection, but you can see him trying to work up the courage whenever Jasper comes over to be pet. It's so sweet to watch, it practically puts me in a diabetic coma. ;)