Moggies :/

[dageurreotype]

I have a cat I found near death on an adjacent soi a year or so back. Having installed it at local vet for treatment, is now fat and happy. A stray who'd been basking on a perimeter wall had crawled under the gates in a very sorry state and is currently at the vet undergoing aforesaid. Problem is current cat wont to chase it off whenever spotted. As cats do. I've managed to increase my bp levels watching various Western centric vids on 'how to introduce a new cat'. I say Western centric as felines are in the main kept in much more confined spaces than that which we have available here in Thailand.

 

All but one suggests putting the moggy in a separate room for a period of up to a week or more, somewhat akin to solitary confinement, and then letting them 'smell each other' under the door and feeding closer to each other until they associate the presence of each other with food, a pleasurable feeling, until at last, a door jamb is suggested to be used either side and opened gradually. 

 

Anyone whose ever had an animal of any kind, let alone a cat, will know being shut up in a room alone for more then 5 minutes will most certainly freak them out. The only vid seemingly making some kind of sense was to put the new (and in my case, recovering) cat in a large 'crate'/cage and letting them get to accept each other's presence that way. Which, IMHO would also freak out 'captured' new cat. However, it'd occurred to me that covering said 'crate' would lessen the stress inducing effects of established cat constantly giving it the stink eye. 

 

Has anyone any advice on this? I'll ignore the 'just let 'em at it' posts as for sure newly recovered cat will be chased out off the property dragging it's bandages after it. Thanks 

[Goinghomesoon]

No idea but sympathy.  It's taken our rescue cat three years to come to terms with our youngest child being added to the family......

[dageurreotype]

16 hours ago, Goinghomesoon said:

No idea but sympathy.  It's taken our rescue cat three years to come to terms with our youngest child being added to the family......

Thank you for taking the time to respond. 

 

The stray is a very sweet little thing. Western centric advice includes 'try to find it a new home if it doesn't work out'. As you are probably aware, impossible here. Strays everywhere and no Thai, being the predominant species, wants to take a stray on.

 

I visited again this morning and it will take another week or more for poor little thing to be healthy enough to leave the vet. I shall simply follow aforesaid Western centric advice and give it a 'safe space', God knows I've enough of it, as pretty sure established erstwhile stray will try to chase it off, given the chance, so length of time no problem, just don't want it ending up at square one. Dear Lord this process is going to be worse than the US/Russia detente   Thanks again.

[Sheryl]

My cat has NEVER accepted other cats and over the years I've taken in many  a stray, including one who became a permanent resident. Four years later, it still requires a "two state solution" to live with them both. When one is inside, the other is out; when one is upstairs, the other is downstairs etc.

 

I can't advise specifically not knowing the layout of your home but basically just keep them apart. When the injured one comes home it will be pretty scared initially, keep it in a smallish room (but not cage) which has places to hide in (cats need to hide when they feel insecure; they also like to climb up somewhere high )-- a closet with the door left ajar is perfect. And then keep the door to that room shut. I wouldn't worry about arranging for the cats to smell each other -- they will. The first priority is to relieve the new fellow's anxiety by giving him a secure space he can make his own, with his own food and water bowls and littler box. Wait until he seems completely at home in that room and starts to ask to come out before trying anything further.

 

At that point you can try bringing the new cat into a room which has the other cat's scent and closing the door to it so he's safe in it and can just explore a bit and get used to the other cat's smell.  Meanwhile let the other cat enter and explore the room the newcomer has been in (and he will, believe me, as soon as that door is left open). Things like this.

 

[dageurreotype]

19 hours ago, Sheryl said:

My cat has NEVER accepted other cats and over the years I've taken in many  a stray, including one who became a permanent resident. Four years later, it still requires a "two state solution" to live with them both. When one is inside, the other is out; when one is upstairs, the other is downstairs etc.

 

I can't advise specifically not knowing the layout of your home but basically just keep them apart. When the injured one comes home it will be pretty scared initially, keep it in a smallish room (but not cage) which has places to hide in (cats need to hide when they feel insecure; they also like to climb up somewhere high )-- a closet with the door left ajar is perfect. And then keep the door to that room shut. I wouldn't worry about arranging for the cats to smell each other -- they will. The first priority is to relieve the new fellow's anxiety by giving him a secure space he can make his own, with his own food and water bowls and littler box. Wait until he seems completely at home in that room and starts to ask to come out before trying anything further.

 

At that point you can try bringing the new cat into a room which has the other cat's scent and closing the door to it so he's safe in it and can just explore a bit and get used to the other cat's smell.  Meanwhile let the other cat enter and explore the room the newcomer has been in (and he will, believe me, as soon as that door is left open). Things like this.

 

Thanks for your response, which appears to coincide with all I've researched so far. Agree the 'cage' idea a bad one after giving it more thought. My main concern is that resident cat already knows this sick cat as one of several 'lurkers', whom he duly chases off at every given opportunity, as they do, so already knows the scent :/

 

I'll just have to close all of the windows in my diary for a week or two and do my best. And to think, in our former house we had up to seven cats at any on time with no problems - all dumped kittens 'Oh we'll just let the farang take care of it'. But therein lies the rub, they were, bar one, all kittens = easy.

 

If it helps anyone I saw a video on FB yesterday (unlinkable as would have to link entire site), whereby someone had demonstrated getting a cardboard box, about the size of a beer delivery box, and knotting a large T shirt over it at the back, tucking in the sleeves either side and leaving the neck hole as the entrance/exit. Brilliant! Cats love boxes and this can also double as a 'safe space'. 

 

Dear God, dogs so much easier ..

[dick dasterdly]

On 4/2/2017 at 11:29 AM, dageurreotype said:

Thanks for your response, which appears to coincide with all I've researched so far. Agree the 'cage' idea a bad one after giving it more thought. My main concern is that resident cat already knows this sick cat as one of several 'lurkers', whom he duly chases off at every given opportunity, as they do, so already knows the scent :/

 

I'll just have to close all of the windows in my diary for a week or two and do my best. And to think, in our former house we had up to seven cats at any on time with no problems - all dumped kittens 'Oh we'll just let the farang take care of it'. But therein lies the rub, they were, bar one, all kittens = easy.

 

If it helps anyone I saw a video on FB yesterday (unlinkable as would have to link entire site), whereby someone had demonstrated getting a cardboard box, about the size of a beer delivery box, and knotting a large T shirt over it at the back, tucking in the sleeves either side and leaving the neck hole as the entrance/exit. Brilliant! Cats love boxes and this can also double as a 'safe space'. 

 

Dear God, dogs so much easier ..

" dogs so much easier"

 

Not always.... I had a few problems with the new dog/s being attacked by the resident 'alpha' and the other dogs joining in . 

[dageurreotype]

On 03/04/2017 at 3:12 PM, dick dasterdly said:

" dogs so much easier"

 

Not always.... I had a few problems with the new dog/s being attacked by the resident 'alpha' and the other dogs joining in . 

Our first dog was saved from being turned into raspberry jam as a very small puppy on a busy main road. When we'd moved, an obviously abandoned dog camping out at an opposite building in progress took an immediate liking to this now grown dog and hung around outside the gates. I'd been tossing him chicken carcasses and he'd taken to joining us on our walks. We had had to bring him inside the house as he became snappy and territorial at passers by, one of whom had retrieved a hoe and was about to do him in  A year or so passed and out of the clear blue sky a Mah Thai (ridgeback) simply joined us on our walk as if he'd always been there and kicked up a hell of a fuss when I'd tried to close the gate on him. (It's said that your pets choose you, not the other way around). The two established dogs would snap at him occasionally, nothing serious, but he was, after all, playing third wheel.

 

Alas, all three dogs got old and died, but the remaining (second) dog had survived the others by around a couple of years and rescued cat, despite my misgivings, took immediate shine to him and would edge toward him, lie on top of the table the dog was sleeping under. The feeling was not mutual and Last Dog Standing would growl a bit and cat would back off, but he never gave up trying to form a bond. Wish this would happen with as yet ensconced new cat, but pretty sure it won't. Weird though huh?

[dageurreotype]

Visited vet this morning to be told sick cat on the mend but has feline leukaemia. She'd told me she didn't want to put him to sleep as he was otherwise strong and healthy. And it's not the Buddhist proscription against destroying an animal thing as I'd had to have her put a dog to sleep (old with kidney failure and couldn't eat or walk any more), BUT he cannot be in an open space with other cats as it's transferable. My house is split level open plan with louvred windows and doors which are always kept open for air flow, impossible to separate the two cats and therefore impossible for me to take it on as could very well present a problem to resident cat  It's a lovely friendly little Marmalade. Can anyone find it in their heart to give it a home? He's been fixed and all vaccinations up to date. No problem to dogs, just felines. She said if he can't be re homed she'll simply let him out in a soi somewhere. Heartbreaking.

 

If anyone can help, please pm me. Thanks.

 

 

[dick dasterdly]

2 minutes ago, dageurreotype said:

Visited vet this morning to be told sick cat on the mend but has feline leukaemia. She'd told me she didn't want to put him to sleep as he was otherwise strong and healthy. And it's not the Buddhist proscription against destroying an animal thing as I'd had to have her put a dog to sleep (old with kidney failure and couldn't eat or walk any more), BUT he cannot be in an open space with other cats as it's transferable. My house is split level open plan with louvred windows and doors which are always kept open for air flow, impossible to separate the two cats and therefore impossible for me to take it on as could very well present a problem to resident cat  It's a lovely friendly little Marmalade. Can anyone find it in their heart to give it a home? He's been fixed and all vaccinations up to date. No problem to dogs, just felines. She said if he can't be re homed she'll simply let him out in a soi somewhere. Heartbreaking.

 

If anyone can help, please pm me. Thanks.

 

 

I'm so sorry to hear this and sympathise with your plight.

 

One of my brothers had a cat with feline leukaemia and watching her grow ever thinner/blending food to syringe feed her etc. was heart breaking.

 

Unfortunately I can't help as my dogs would make his life a misery (I'm no Cesar Millan....), but I hope that you manage to find someone kind enough to adopt him for his final months.

 

If you're unable to do so, having him put to sleep is probably a kinder option (for both him and other homeless cats) than putting him out in the street to fend for himself .

[dageurreotype]

5 hours ago, dick dasterdly said:

I'm so sorry to hear this and sympathise with your plight.

 

One of my brothers had a cat with feline leukaemia and watching her grow ever thinner/blending food to syringe feed her etc. was heart breaking.

 

Unfortunately I can't help as my dogs would make his life a misery (I'm no Cesar Millan....), but I hope that you manage to find someone kind enough to adopt him for his final months.

 

If you're unable to do so, having him put to sleep is probably a kinder option (for both him and other homeless cats) than putting him out in the street to fend for himself .

Thank you for your sympathy, I'd related this sorry tale to a neighbour who'd said 'Well, it's only a cat'. So lack of empathy not sole preserve of the Thais.

 

I hear what you say about having to watch cat become sick, but the vet told me that most of the soi cats have FL so he'll not be a danger to them. It's just the thought of him not having access to regular food and being stuck out in the rain horribly sad. She won't put him to sleep whilst he looks healthy and strong, she has a resident cat with FIV of her own in the clinic, and he looks fit and healthy, so was nonplussed to learn he had this as we'd had to have three of the kittens put to sleep because of their degenerative FIV status, only because they couldn't eat.

 

I too would never put an animal to sleep if it wasn't showing any signs of distress. I think it probably a Western concept oddly enough, given that I'd recently read that somewhere in the region of 27,000 healthy cats and dogs were destroyed annually in just one county alone in the US because they couldn't find homes for them within, to my mind, a very short period of time. Shocking  A Thai wouldn't do that, for all their bad press.

 

If he can't be re homed in a cat free environment, I simply must follow her advice. Sadly. 

 

Thanks again for your thoughtful post.