Please let us know what you decide. This is such a sad story and I hope it
has a happy ending.
Gail
"Gail" wrote in message ...
Can you keep him in your basement or a garage (heated)? He sounds lovely
and too nice a cat not to have a home. Also, maybe someone who has no
other
cats will take him.
Gail
"Simon Bar Sinister" wrote in message
om...
Hello.. I have a cat situation that has arisen. I live in a rural area
of NJ. We have a lot of woods and animals that run around (Groundhogs
Deer etc...) My wife and I are both animal lovers and we own 2 pure
bred Ragdoll Cats. They are strictly indoor cats. They are treated
like the king and queen of the world and I cannot even imagine a day
without them.

The area we live in is a prime dumping ground for unwanted animals. In
the 2 years we have been here there have been several cats that we
have seen roaming around that appear to be homeless. One cat in
particular looked very ragged and always just walked by the house and
keep going down the street. I assumed he lived in one of the house
down the road a few blocks. About a week ago I was in my office when I
saw this cat ramming his head into my office window. He looked like he
was emaciated and starving. I feed him a can of food and he purred the
whole time and then slept a while under a tree and split. He then
started showing up every day since. He basically sits at the front
glass door and looks in at my ragdolls and it was all very sad because
you could tell he was sad and neglected etc. We continued to feed him
and he already appears to be gaining weight and basically he has been
hanging under the Japanese Maple tree by my front door. In my 35 years
of owning cats he is one of the nicest cats I have ever come in
contact with. He is just starving for food and for attention. I took a
weeks vacation this week to "relax". Well on Tuesday I said screw it I
am going to take him to the vet that our ragdolls go to. Well I had
them give him a thorough checkup, tests and shots. He appears to have
been fixed so at one point he was "someone's" cat. He has lost all of
his teeth but one. Everyone at the vet loved him and he purred so much
they couldn't even check his heart because the purring was so loud. He
loved the ride in the car and he just seems to genuinely appreciate
all of the help. I bought him a nice jewel collar and he is now
walking around the yard proud as a peacock. My wife and I decided
that we would try and keep him around but we knew he had to be an
outside cat. It wouldn't be fair to our Ragdoll cats to bring an
indoor/outdoor cat into the house and put them at risk of disease etc.

Well I just got a call from the vet and it seems the cat is FIV
positive. I am totally crushed. She said that although passing it to
our cats through human contact was not possible and even though he has
1 tooth left he is a low risk spreader of the disease, however for him
to be outside exposes anyone else's cat to the risk if they attack
him. Also being an outside cat leaves him open to various germs etc.

We are at a loss as to what to do. I DO NOT want to bring him to a
shelter. The vet mentioned that there were FIV colonies and I should
look on the internet but I haven't seen anything like this. Does
anyone have some advice on this? WE WANT WHAT IS BEST FOR THIS CAT!!!.
He is so appreciative I cannot describe it. It is almost human. He
eats a little and then comes back and rubs against you and he will sit
with you for hours and just hang. I know we could continue to feed him
and keep him close to the house but I think his chances on the outside
are not good especially in the winter. I can tell that this last week
has been one of the best in his life, he looks like a different cat in
just one week of our care even outside but it is warm now. In addition
I don't want him to spread it to anyone else's cat although it does
not appear that any of my neighbors have legitimate indoor outdoor
cats. I couldn't see this cat attacking another cat and being that he
literally has one tooth the risk of him biting another cat is
remote...

Please any advice appreciated this situation is breaking our hearts..