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#11
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Figure out if you really are ready to
commit to domesticating this cat and caring for it the remainder of its life. If not, then do the right thing and turn it over to the Humane Society or another agency that can handle finding someone to adopt it. There are no agencies in his area (which is where I also live) that are going to take the time to socialize a feral cat and find it a home. They will consider it unadoptable and kill it. This is the fate of most ferals that are handed over to "humane" societies, no matter where you live. It's unrealistic and irresponsible to recommend that as an option. Megan "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke Learn The TRUTH About Declawing http://www.stopdeclaw.com Zuzu's Cats Photo Album: http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22 "Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way." - W.H. Murray |
#12
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Update on the kitten. He/she now comes into the house when we open the
screen door. It will play on the carpet for a while and then bolt back outside. It still much prefers being outside and loves to play with the falling leaves. Then again, who wouldn't when the October temps in Minnesota are 85 degrees. I am really tugging at whether it will accept an indoor only environment as it really does enjoy the outdoors (bet it will change its mind when it is 20 below out). We are going to bring it in this weekend and see how it does. We are also scheduling a vet's appointment to get the necessary shots. Looks like our weekend will consist of buying a litter box and scratching post, and spending lots of affectionate time with the kitty. Our daughter moved our recently so we have a spare bedroom that it can have all to itself. A couple areas of concern are the playful but painful biting the kitty does when we pet it. I'm sure this is affectionate biting (if there is such a thing) but man, the teeth are real sharp. A loud NO will usually stop the biting, but then...right back at it. Another very difficult decision has to be made about declawing. I want the kitty to have the run of the house and really hope it adopts the scratching posts. I have talked to vets and they only say it is a personal decision. Most are unaware of behavior problems with declawed cats, but it just seems to me that the procedure is rather inhumane. One vet did mention that the cat may start biting since it has lost its main means of self-defense. Rare, but it does happen. I guess if the kitty does not adopt the scratching posts and its scratching becomes a problem, I could keep it in a separate room, free of anything of value, and then let it outside on occasion, and also let it roam the house when we are there to watch it. I hate calling kitty "it'. Need to determine the sex real soon! "Linda Terrell" wrote in message ... Keep several scratching posts around the house. I have 2 in living room and one in the hallway. Ideally, there should be one in each room. LT |
#13
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After posting my previous message I did more research on declawing. After
reading more and more about declawing, I couldn't in good conscious do this. I really never gave this a second thought until a poster here mentioned how cruel and inhumane the procedure is. I have a brother and sister who have purebred cats and they had to sign a form saying they would not mutilate (declaw) the cats. My sister has leather furniture and her cat loved scratching it. She now takes it to a vet and has these caps put on the claws. I think the caps last about a month. Has anyone had any experience with these caps or soft paws? "Curtis Fox" wrote in message ... Update on the kitten. He/she now comes into the house when we open the screen door. It will play on the carpet for a while and then bolt back outside. It still much prefers being outside and loves to play with the falling leaves. Then again, who wouldn't when the October temps in Minnesota are 85 degrees. I am really tugging at whether it will accept an indoor only environment as it really does enjoy the outdoors (bet it will change its mind when it is 20 below out). We are going to bring it in this weekend and see how it does. We are also scheduling a vet's appointment to get the necessary shots. Looks like our weekend will consist of buying a litter box and scratching post, and spending lots of affectionate time with the kitty. Our daughter moved our recently so we have a spare bedroom that it can have all to itself. A couple areas of concern are the playful but painful biting the kitty does when we pet it. I'm sure this is affectionate biting (if there is such a thing) but man, the teeth are real sharp. A loud NO will usually stop the biting, but then...right back at it. Another very difficult decision has to be made about declawing. I want the kitty to have the run of the house and really hope it adopts the scratching posts. I have talked to vets and they only say it is a personal decision. Most are unaware of behavior problems with declawed cats, but it just seems to me that the procedure is rather inhumane. One vet did mention that the cat may start biting since it has lost its main means of self-defense. Rare, but it does happen. I guess if the kitty does not adopt the scratching posts and its scratching becomes a problem, I could keep it in a separate room, free of anything of value, and then let it outside on occasion, and also let it roam the house when we are there to watch it. I hate calling kitty "it'. Need to determine the sex real soon! "Linda Terrell" wrote in message ... Keep several scratching posts around the house. I have 2 in living room and one in the hallway. Ideally, there should be one in each room. LT |
#14
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Curtis wrote:
Update on the kitten. He/she now comes into the house when we open the screen door. It will play on the carpet for a while and then bolt back outside. It still much prefers being outside and loves to play with the falling leaves. Then again, who wouldn't when the October temps in Minnesota are 85 degrees. I am really tugging at whether it will accept an indoor only environment as it really does enjoy the outdoors (bet it will change its mind when it is 20 below out). It will adapt to indoor life just fine. Without exception, every feral I have taken in has. We are going to bring it in this weekend and see how it does. We are also scheduling a vet's appointment to get the necessary shots. Looks like our weekend will consist of buying a litter box and scratching post, and spending lots of affectionate time with the kitty. Our daughter moved our recently so we have a spare bedroom that it can have all to itself. One thing you should be aware of is that the cat may not know what the litterbox is for. This is easy to remedy. Get two boxes and put dirt from your yard in one of them. Hopefully the cat will use the reglar litter and this won't be an issue, but if it takes a little bit to figure it out it will use the dirt in the second box. You can start adding regular litter to the dirt and gradually switch to just litter over a few days time. A couple areas of concern are the playful but painful biting the kitty does when we pet it. I'm sure this is affectionate biting (if there is such a thing) but man, the teeth are real sharp. A loud NO will usually stop the biting, but then...right back at it. Don't pet the kitty if it bites. It wouldn't hurt to run over to Menard's and buy a pair of their welding gloves to wear until you can redirect the cat's biting to something else(they are blue suede and cost about $5) Get a small stuffed animal and let kitty bite that or distract it with a feather wand or something similar. This is how young cats play and since ths one doesn't have another cat to roughhouse with you are the next best thing. Don't react to the cat with anything negative, just redirect it's attention to an appropriate item. Another very difficult decision has to be made about declawing. I want the kitty to have the run of the house and really hope it adopts the scratching posts. Kitty will. Get the cat used to having its claws trimmed. Keeping them short pretty much eliminates any damage they can do. Make sure to choose scratching posts it likes. Cardbard scratchers are heap popular and it would be wise for you to get the cat a floor to ceiling cat tree too. You can see a picture of one as well as an excellent scratching post available at Petsmart he http://community.webtv.net/zuzu22/scratch Placement of the posts are important and should be close to where kitty spends a lot of time. The entryway to a room where kitty spends a lot of time is another good place for a post. I have one right by the doorway to my bedroom and the first thing the cats do when they come in is scratch it. :-) I have never had any of my ferals even look sideways at the furniture. They use the cat trees and posts exclusively for all their scratching. I have talked to vets and they only say it is a personal decision. Most are unaware of behavior problems with declawed cats, but it just seems to me that the procedure is rather inhumane. It *is* inhumane and that is why it is considered animal cruelty and banned or illegal in most of the world. Most American vets that do this horrific thing to cats are more interested in making money off of the procedure rather than educating clients on how to train their cats, which is VERY easy. Give the cat something *of its own* with a surface that it likes to scratch, place it in a good location and you won't have any problems. One vet did mention that the cat may start biting since it has lost its main means of self-defense. Rare, but it does happen. It's NOT rare. Ask anyone who has worked as a vet tech or in a shelter for any length of time. Behavior problems are generally not reported to vets because the majority of people that declaw are ignorant as to what the procedure is and don't understand that the declawing is the reason Fluffly starts biting because she has no other defense or refuses to use the litterbox because she has suffered excruciating pain and it hurts her poor little mutilated paws to dig in the litter. I guess if the kitty does not adopt the scratching posts and its scratching becomes a problem, I could keep it in a separate room, free of anything of value, and then let it outside on occasion, and also let it roam the house when we are there to watch it. I really doubt that will be an issue. :-) I hate calling kitty "it'. Need to determine the sex real soon! Especially if it's a girl as you will have a pregnant cat on your hands very soon if she is not spayed and left outside. :-( Megan "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke Learn The TRUTH About Declawing http://www.stopdeclaw.com Zuzu's Cats Photo Album: http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22 "Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way." - W.H. Murray |
#15
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I guess if the kitty does not adopt the scratching posts and
its scratching becomes a problem, I could keep it in a separate room, free of anything of value, and then let it outside on occasion, and also let it roam the house when we are there to watch it. Offer the kitten a variety of "legal" scratching surfaces and praise it lavishly when it uses them. A couple of my cats have loved the corrugated paper scratchers. Another one ripped the top off of three tunnels. These are carpeted "pipes" with a solid base. She could really get a good grip on those. Others have loved a cheap scratching post I got at a grocery store. I've got tree trunks, sisal, etc. Just because the kitten doesn't use one post doesn't mean it can't be trained to scratch in appropriate places. You also need to cover with heavy plastic areas that are too tempting to resist, at least at the start. A taut upholstered front of the arm on my couch is much too tempting to mine. I gave away a set of fully upholstered parsons-type dining room chairs after the cats ripped them up. I saw chair, they saw the world's greatest scratching post. I've had stray cats run into my house, scratch on those chairs and then run out again. More dining room chairs with wooden legs and backs and upholstered seats are a better choice for households shared with cats. http://www.madmousergraphics.com web design, print design, photography |
#16
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On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 16:18:06 GMT, "Curtis Fox"
wrote: ast about a month. Has anyone had any experience with these caps or soft paws? Yes, I've had two sets of Soft Paws for TuTu. She never tried to scratc the furniture -- I have several scratching things for her -- plus the carpet (which I am going to replace anyway as soon as I can get the energy to shop). She no longer tries to scratch me (in play). If I see an inkling that she is thinking that way I say loudly "NO CLAWS" and she stops. I don't know if I will go for a third set or not. They lasted about 3 months each and she spent a lot of time trying to bite them off. A squirt bottle is a good teaching tool. Good luck. MLB |
#17
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wrote in message
... There are no agencies in his area (which is where I also live) that are going to take the time to socialize a feral cat and find it a home. They will consider it unadoptable and kill it. This is the fate of most ferals that are handed over to "humane" societies, no matter where you live. It's unrealistic and irresponsible to recommend that as an option. Megan I'm glad you qualified the statement with "most," Megan. I work at the Dane County HS in southern WI. We have a feral program that practices alter and release where the cats can't be rehabilitated and moved into foster homes. Somewhere around 200 cats were saved last year with that program. I realize it doesn't exist everywhere, but are there no foster homes that would be willing to work with what amounts to an undersocialized kitten? |
#18
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I'm glad you qualified the statement with
"most," Megan. I work at the Dane County HS in southern WI. We have a feral program that practices alter and release where the cats can't be rehabilitated and moved into foster homes. Somewhere around 200 cats were saved last year with that program. That's good to hear. Too bad there aren't more of them. :-( I realize it doesn't exist everywhere, but are there no foster homes that would be willing to work with what amounts to an undersocialized kitten? Everybody is full. There is no room at the inn. And when space opens socialized cats are the first to fill them because those are the ones that can be adopted out the quickest so more can be rescued. We had a terrible kitten season this year because of a mild winter with not a whole lot of snow and the shelters and animal control were/are overflowing. The smaller rescues took out as many as they could, but it didn't make a dent. The flow didn't stop and mothers and entire litters of kittens have been euthanized regularly non stop. When you're dealing with this kind of situation, rescues can ill afford to give space to a cat that may take weeks/months to socialize and sacrifice *several* cats as a result of not being able to take them, and many rescues have no resources/experienced people to do this in the first place. I have a friend that runs a rescue and took a feral into her program that she herself had trapped. It's been a year and a half and he is *still* in a foster home, now waiting to be adopted, filling a space that possibly 20 or more cats could have used. I'm glad he's there, alive and doing well and don't begrudge him that for a moment. He deserves to have a happy life as all cats, feral or not, do. I'm just illustrating the bigger picture, the philosophy of which most rescues is to save as many lives as they can. Nobody likes or wants to see cats and dogs rot away at animal control, then be killed because there is nowhere for them to go. It sucks that rescues are unable at this time to do more in the area of socializing ferals, but it's, unfortunately, reality. I don't ever promote relying on rescues to take care of someone's stray cat problem anyway. With the vast resources available on the net and in newsgroups such as this, I would rather see someone that has found an undersocialized kitten take the responsibility for socializing it and finding it a home themselves. That relieves the rescues of an extra and unnecessary burden and the people that take the responsibility for the cat will have done a really good thing. It's win-win. :-) Megan "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke Learn The TRUTH About Declawing http://www.stopdeclaw.com Zuzu's Cats Photo Album: http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22 "Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way." - W.H. Murray |
#19
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In ,
Kalyahna composed with style: I realize it doesn't exist everywhere, but are there no foster homes that would be willing to work with what amounts to an undersocialized kitten? It depends on the time of year. I have a semi-socialized young cat who when I trapped her it was along with a bunch of older cats who I intented to trap, neuter, release. At the time that I trapped her, she was too young to release but none of the groups around here would take her so I had the moral decision to either release her or have her vaccinated for FeLV and pray for her health and keep her. I have a FeLV+ cat, and another who also has to be vaccinated yearly (the positive cat became positive at 10 years of age from a transfusion). If I had turned her "over" to the shelter she would have been killed. She is solid black and there are too many black cats here and no one wants black cats for some reason. If she wasn't trapped in May, but maybe in November, a feral group may have taken her. |
#20
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Cheryl wrote:
I forgot to say that she was totally feral when I trapped her. You also forgot to say that after several months of great work on your part she now worships your feet. :-) (And never ever scratches the furniture!) Megan "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke Learn The TRUTH About Declawing http://www.stopdeclaw.com Zuzu's Cats Photo Album: http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22 "Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way." - W.H. Murray |
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