Pet Owner Relinquishes Rights to Cat

Many times I think that the cats that come into my yard are stray due to their matted fur and they are usually hungry or thirsty. If the cat meows and is friendly and spends the entire day and night in my yard. I assume that it may be an indoor/outdoor cat, a neglected cat or that the pet owner has moved away.

What happens if you know of a pet owner who isn't being responsible and Do you know the cat needs care? Do you call animal control and report the neglect or do you visit with the person to find out if they still want the cat? 

Sometimes they aren't intentionally irresponsible as maybe they are sick, maybe there is a reason for the lack of care, and maybe they would prefer to relinquish their rights to the cat. Many times pet owners who never let their cats indoors and provide no outdoor shelter for the cat do not want the cat anymore and are eager to surrender their rights to someone who likes and wants to adopt the cat.

A cat that pet owner didn't want 

A few weeks ago my neighbor's cat decided to live in my yard. If would spend the entire day in my garden, drinking from the pond, hunting grasshoppers and salamanders and I found that it was sleeping in my dogs house at night. As soon as the dog was brought inside the cat went into the house in the kennel. The cat did not go home and I knew that it was at one time a housecat and needed to be cared for especially since my area has coyotes and other animals that would enjoy a cat snack.

Since I knew the woman who owned the cat I did go to visit with her. She told me to release the cat that it was outdoors now because she was ill and could not take care of it anymore.

I told her that the coyote was in the neighborhood at night and that it really was not safe for a housecat to be outdoors. But the neighbor was stern saying that the cat is not coming in here. She went on to say that the cat was too much trouble, always wanting to sit on her lap and that the cat kicked the litter all over the place.

I learned that the cat in question was approximately 15 years old and was not spayed and was taken to the veterinarian for vaccines when it was a kitten, but other than that no routine vaccines, wormer, or veterinarian care for approximately 14 years. Clearly, the cat was neglected and my neighbor was not being a responsible pet owner so I offered to adopt the cat if she would relinquish her rights of owning the cat to me. 

She was glad to do that but I didn’t take her word for it. I went home and printed out a cat surrender of ownership where the pet owner relinquished her rights. We both signed and dated the document and we both had a copy of the agreement.

 So now I have a 15-year-old cat that will be going to the veterinarian for a spay, vaccines, and wellness check-ups. If the cat is healthy with no serious health concerns I will then seek adopters in my neighborhood.

***If you love cats then you want to view my cat-designed products. Many products were created from the photographs of feral and stray cats that we care for. ***

Rescued Abandoned Orange Tabby Cat

In April my husband and I learned that a family in our neighborhood had moved and left their 8-month-old orange tabby cat at the house.  At first, we thought maybe the cat was outdoors and that they would come back for the cat so we located the house and watched for the cat.  The cat returned in the early evening and sat by the front door.  The cat sat and waited for somebody to let it in, we observed the cat sleeping on the porch by the front door. We fed him and gave him water.  His people never returned.  They had moved and abandoned their cat.

Cats rarely come to strangers, so coaxing the cat to us with food was not going to happen.  We tried to catch this young tabby cat for the next two weeks.  We set up a humane live animal trap and caught other cats but not the cat that we wanted.  We left food and water for the cat and saw that the food was eaten.

We eventually rescued this cat but it was only because he had gotten into a horrific fight and sustained many injuries including deep puncture wounds.  My husband was able to pick him up easily and we rushed him to the veterinarian where they stitched him up, gave him a shot of antibiotics, neutered him and administered full vaccines.

Then when we picked him up we learned that he tested positive for FIV.  Learn more about FIV here.

I have no idea why the veterinarian did not call us and tell us that this cat had an incurable disease that occurs when an infected cat bites another cat and inflicts a deep puncture wound. The virus needs to be transmitted by blood contact to infect another cat. Feline Immunodeficiency Virus is a cat disease and is not transferable to humans or other animals.

 For the past several weeks we have been caring for an injured cat.  A cat with bite wounds all over his body, a ruptured eardrum and bad scratches close to his eyes.  His bite wounds will heal, however, we are not sure if he will regain his hearing.

We will continue to care for this cat and have a follow-up appointment with the veterinarian in June.  Hoping that we will be able to find him a forever home.  It is not easy when a cat has FIV with a disability not many people will adopt a cat that has a special need.

Do you adopt cats with a disability, disease or special needs?

Learn more about FIV here

Abandoned Cat Gets Forever Home

A handsome tuxedo cat was abandoned. His person left him in our woods nine months ago. The cat was put out in a box that my husband thought was trash.

Original photo of Cat Abandoned 

My husband observed a man parking this car at the end of the street then walking down the hill with a cardboard box. The man returned without the box and my husband yelled at him, thinking he had just dumped trash.



Trash was not dumped in our woods, nope that man abandoned an adult tuxedo cute that was terrified by his new surroundings. Cats that are abandoned do not respond well to strangers. So when my husband tried to coax the cat to come to him The cat was fearful and ran when my husband approached him.



Immediately we let our neighbors know what the cat looked like and that it was abandoned. It is a nice looking cat and a few of my neighbors said that the would take it in. But this abandoned cat was so afraid of people that nobody could get close to him.



Trapping was not something we considered because the cat was stressed out, we wanted the cat to come to us when it was ready. That did not mean that we did not leave our garages open, provide the cat with warm bed food and water. The cat would enter our garages but ran when people tried to befriend him.



I always said that a cat will choose who he wants to be with. My friend that told me that she loved this cat and that she had been socializing the cat for the last 8 months. She was trying to get the cat to trust humans again and it worked. This cat got a second chance at having a forever home.



This stray cat will sit on the woman’s porch every morning at 5 AM to eat at her feeding station. Then he will rub on her legs and she is allowed to sit close to him and pet him. She loves this tuxedo cat and he loves her.




We are happy that the cat that was abandoned in the wood now has a forever home with an adopter that loves cats. It does not happen all the time but when it does it is always nice to know that an abandoned cat gets a second chance.

Fostering Baby Cat

This week  I agreed to foster a baby cat that was found in a field that was adjacent to a highway. The cat was skin and bones with eyes clouded over which is a sign that death is soon.  

This baby cat was lucky because his meows were heard by a person who was taking a walk before church service. She found the cat and rushed him to animal emergency care, then returned to search for other kittens. 

All of the littermates had been killed on the highway. These baby cats had been abandoned to an area that had no food water, or shelter and kittens would not survive because the only way to get to a neighborhood meant crossing the highway.

Unfortunately, the rescuer could not foster the kitten and had to surrender to another foster.  The rescuer brought the kitten to my city which is an hour away. She gave the six-weeks old kitten to a foster who was elderly and it was not a good match. I was visiting the elderly woman and saw that both kitten and foster was suffering, so I took the baby cat.

The baby cat has suffered great trauma and must be the runt because it is very small. I am keeping until it puts on weight and can get its booster shots. The kitten will be put up for adoption soon. We would prefer to adopt this kitten to a family with experience with cats that have suffered trauma. A trauma kitten or cat needs a family that will pay attention to it.  

Found One Pound Bengal - Maine Coon Kitten

On a cool day in November I was working in my yard and though I heard a kitten meow.  Upon investigation of the bamboo and not seeing anything I decided that I must have mistook what I had heard.  Know that nestled among the bamboo shoots I have a feral cat shelter that is stuffed with straw to keep the cats warm. One of the spayed feral cats had been sleeping in this shelter and both my husband and I thought it was odd, since this cat sleeps in a large thicket den in my neighbors yard.

We watched this adult feral cat and her behavior was odd.  She  has been seen going in and out of this shelter which is my old work shed.  I keep food , water and cat beds in this shed.  Know her behavior was odd because she doe s not eat at the feeding station, my neighbor feeds her or she hunts in the woods.

 I made a point to watch her and glad that I did.  The feral cat that we call Lucy ate at my food station, then went back to where the cat house was and regurgitated her food.  This spayed feral cat had found a kitten and was trying to care for it as best as she could.

There was no way to get close to the kitten that appeared to be very small.  If I attempted to take the kitten and failed then the feral cat  would take the kitten to the woods and we would never see it again.  So husband and I watched Lucy the kitten and cat house.

The weather forecast was calling for colder weather throughout the night and I worried about the little kitten. We h ad our dinner, watched a movie and went to bed.  Then for some reason I got up at 5 AM, put on my slippers and fleece robe and went outside.  I walked 30 feet to the front of the house and the first thing that I saw was the leaves moving on the lawn.

I thought perhaps a field mouse was coming toward me or other forest animal, I soon learned it was the one pound Bengal and Maine Coon Kitten.  When the kitten reached me it was meowing loudly and I recall hearing leaf movement coming from my side yard.  I suspect coyote were coming for a snack or maybe it was Lucy the feral cat?

No time was wasted I picked up the kitten, and put it in the pocket of my fleece robe and hurried to go back indoors.   Once inside I felt the kittens ear, nose and paws; they were cold as ice.  I took steps to warm the the kitten and then followed that with bottle feeding.  The kitten is not feral which means that a human had to have abandoned the baby cat.

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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.

Feeding Rescued Baby Kitten: 3 to 5 Weeks

baby kitten 3 weeks old

This month my husband and I rescued baby kittens. The kittens were put into a Glad trash bag and thrown out onto the center medium of the road during the night hours when the light was poor and the cars sped by.  These baby kittens were newborns as two of them had just opened their eyes and these two out of the five needed help in going to the bathroom. 

We kept the kittens isolated from our cats and decided that due to the trauma that they just endured that we would care for them until they were four lbs.

At first we fed the kitten replacement milk and then when they were 4 week old we shopped at PetSmart for a quality kitten food.  We looked at Blue Buffalo but decided to buy Wellness Core dry kitten food. This is what we are feeding the kittens, a food that will boost their immune system and help them to grow healthy and strong.  .   

Boosting kitten immune system with Wellness Core kitten food

Feeding Baby Kittens, Hairy, Larry, Dini, Molly, and Sally Replacement milk 

At five weeks we were feeding the kitten’s softened solid food because these babies needed to put on weight. We also continued the replacement milk because it was a good way to boost their immune system.

Larry the rescued kitten 5 weeks old

At six weeks the kittens are weighing in approximately two pounds.   The worst thing that cat owner did was take the baby kittens away from their mom at such a young age and then put them in a bag and throw them out like trash.   I am so glad that my husband and I found the babies.

Sickly but beautiful rescued kittens

  

All kittens will be put up for adoption after they get a wellness checkup at the veterinarian and are tested for cat disease, get their booster shots and are wormed.  If you are interested in learning more about these  kittens please leave me a comment below.

Here are some baby kitten photographs.  

Kittens Hairy, Larry, Molly, and Dini eating wellness core kitten food

Baby Dini Kitten 

Knowing What Cat Abandonment Means

When the cat is left at a veterinarians or kennel and the pet owner does not returned to pay or collect their pet after a certain amount of days then the cat is known as being abandoned to the animal facility.

Photo taken on day we rescued kitten

A cat can also be abandoned when the owner leaves the cat in a public place, park and neighborhood and does not return.  This abandonment happens frequently in my neighborhood.

1. Pet owners drive to the entrance to the woods by my home and then pick up their cat and carry them to the entrance of the woods before they drive away.
2. Many people will abandon their cats by moving from their home without pets in hopes that new owners of the home will take on the cat care responsibility.
3. Then there are the people that put their house cats outdoors before they move away.  They stop feeding the cat and do not give them shelter and the cats get freaked out and roam the streets for food, shelter and a person to love and care for them.

Kittens drink up formula in plate

We have taken in cats that were removed from their owner’s cars and left at the entrance of the woods.  These actions were clearly animal abuse and it was noted that owner no longer wanted to care for the animal. 

In our experience no owner has tried to reclaim a cat that they have left in the woods, none have felt remorse for their actions.  Had they come forward we would have returned the cat to the pet owner but cat owner would be liable for all expenses occurred while we cared for the abandoned cat.  As an example when we take in an abandoned cat we immediately care for any injuries.  Then after two weeks waiting we will then take cat to the veterinarian for checkup, Feline Leukemia and AIDS test and rabies shot.  Should the pet owner return after the medical care was administered we would then return the cat only after all expenses were compensated.

Note: 

As a rule we always post found cat signs in the area where the cat was left. These signs will aid the pet owner that may feel guilty for their actions.

When the cat owner refuses to care for their pet by abandonment then after a certain period of time the owner may be charged with a misdemeanor as it is against the law to abandon a pet.

Other Cat Blog Posts That You May Like

Last Attempt to Find Pet Owner

Rescuer Takes Cat to Veterinarian for Checkup

Why do Cats Leave Home