Caretakers Adopt Abandoned Stray Cat

For the last two years my husband and I along with the neighbors have been caretakers to a cute five year old tabby cat that was left behind when his people moved. We all put out food and water for this cat and have opened up our heated garages by installing a cat door for the abandoned and stray cats. Along with the garage shelters many of us have bought outdoor cat shelters for these animals that were left behind by their people.

We all wanted to adopt this cute tabby cat but couldn't.

All of us were over our pet limit and could not officially adopt this cat as the pet laws are very strict where I live and if you break them you risk of having all of your pets taken away by animal control. So we all follow the rules and do our best to take care of the abandoned cats in our neighborhood.

Last winter we found this tabby abandoned stray cat outdoors when it was in the single digits. Husband picked him up and put him in a cat cage in our mud room for overnight, it was too darn cold outdoors and this cat could have gotten frostbite. So the stray cat stayed in the cat cage, that was located in our mud room, where a door closed off the rest of our house, for three days.  Then  when the snow  melted and temperatures was warmer the cat went outdoors again.

The cat went back to his routine and all of the neighborhood watched out for him. Then in September of 2014 I had to put down three of my cats due to cancer and diabetes. Then in December we adopted this stray cat and got him neutered, vaccinated and provided him with flea and parasite treatment.

He came indoors to live with us and while he seems to like it, he does miss going outdoors. For the next three months we intend to keep him indoors so he knows that we are his people and he has a home . 

We would like to let him go outdoors to play in our yard.  But we fear that he will run to the home where he was born to look for his former people, they are not there and the “new family” could care less about the former cat who lived in the house. So it is best that the abandoned stray cat relate to us as his new family.