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So for the last couple weeks, there's been this fairly young cat hanging around the back of my office building. I'd say maybe 6-10 months old, he/she (we think it's a she) is pretty small.

Well, we call her Tripod. Why Tripod? She has something wrong with her back right hind leg. Either it was broken badly or she got attacked or something, cause she never puts weight on it and basically hops around on three legs all the time, unless she's sitting/laying down. I'm leaning more towards attacked because her fur is mostly black with some patches of brown/orange fur but the hurt leg is like pure gray/white hair.

She's real skittish. If you get too close, like within a foot or two, she will run (hop) away pretty fast. She mainly hangs out underneath various cars in the back parking lot, and kinda sleeps in a pile of those wood loading platforms they use to ship in stuff to a neighboring office building.

So the dilema is this.. Do we choose for her to live or die? Let me explain. She can't hunt. She just can't. She has a hard enough time hopping around as it is, and even though theres plenty of crickets and grasshoppers and other stuff a cat could eat, theres not a lot of regular wild food a feral cat can get out in the office area. There's woods nearby, across the parking lot, but she is in no shape to hunt. It's only a matter of time until someone accidentally runs her over in the parking lot cause she hangs out under cars or worse yet, some non-cat lover has a bad day and see's her and either hits her with a car or hurts her.

But it gets worse. Animal Control refuses to get her unless she is already contained, and catching her would be difficult. PLUS, we all know if we hand her over to Animal Control, they will just put her down, they won't try to heal her and give her to a shelter or home, they'll just automatically put her to sleep.

What do we do?

I say we cause me and some fellow co-workers have been mulling over what to do for a week or so now. We've been feeding her, putting bowls of catfood and water outside. She'll eat and eat and eat, so we know she's starving. When she's eating we can get pretty close. But aside from us, she has no source of food or water really..I mean its gotten this bad for her;



Sometimes people throw away the bowls we leave for her, so she has to end up drinking stagnant drain off water... Taking that picture damn near broke my heart to see her do that, I could easily have gave her water but some jerk threw away the bowls we set out, I had nothing to put fresh water in

What do we do? I hate to see her suffer and lord knows I don't want to walk out back one day for a smoke break and see her dead in the parking lot but at the same time we want to try to give her every chance we can at living. I can't bring her home, I've got 3 cats already, I have no place to keep her contained since until I could get her shots and such, I couldn't keep her around my indoor-only cats (which is all 3 I have). No one else from work whos been keeping an eye out for her can bring her home either.

*sigh*

Get a sign, black markers, and well, you know the rest.

On the other hand, you can look up any "no kill" shelters in your area and give her a chance at adoption.

Catching her may be difficult, but that's what I'd try to do. Call some shelters and ask for their best advice on how to do it. Once you have her, call around and tell your story to some vets; some will do pro bono work in these situations, or maybe you can take up a collection around work for a vet visit.

If you really don't want to try to catch her, then your only options are to feed her or not to feed her, I guess. And my vote goes to "feed her." You're right, she probably doesn't have much chance in the wild so at least you can make her more comfortable, and maybe she'll even become friendlier and easier to capture.

I'm with the no kill shelter idea

One of the best kitties I ever had was a feral cat. I caught him because he was so scrawny and pitiful, brought him home (isolated from the other cat), gave him a bath (traumatic for both of us let me assure you) and took him to the vet. When we got home, I kept him in one room so I could find him easily and kept making contact with him. After 3 days of eating my hand, he started purring one of the times I was petting him, and that was that. After that day, Spanky decided I wasn't the debil (despite the bath) and slept with me for the rest of his little days. He was a really great cat. I'm not saying that every feral cat has the same potential, but I certainly wouldn't count a cat out just because it's feral.

Catching her MIGHT be hard....but you can always try having your officemates pitch in for a cat carrier. Stick a blanket and some food in there and it is entirely possible that Tripod will just go in there to sleep...or even just eat. if you find she's in there, shut the door on it fast and boom.

Just remember to have someone take it home or put it inside if it takes a few days to work. Would not want someone throwing away cat-filled carrier.

I have a kitty. I feel for your situation. I would keep feeding her and call an actual no-kill shelter/pet adoption place. As mentioned in a previous post there are places that will do a lot for free.

Definitely approach local no kill shelters. Animal Control's job isn't to save animals, but to remove animals from places where they may present a health hazard.

The shelters may have advice on how to catch her, or they may be equipped to catch themselves (probably unlikely).

Placing food in a cage and the waiting can work. My officemates and I did that exactly with a couple of strays that were living under the stoop outside the building. Make sure to feed her at a regular time every day for a few days, then one day, instead putting the food down in the same spot at that time, put it in a cage next to the spot.

If I were in that situation I'd first find someone (whether a no kill shelter or another animal lover) that was willing to take them and give them the care that was needed.

If you can't find anyone to do that, then the only choices you have are feeding her behind work (which could work out) or giving her to animal control or another animal shelter where she'll likely be put down (or pay to have her put down yourself, which IMHO can be a bit more humane than shelters which use CO2 - a very cheap method).

The reality is that if she has a leg problem she is very likely to deteriorate quickly unless she gets treatment - not using it could mean she already has an infection or open wound, but it also means she is more susceptible to getting one in the immediate future.

On the other hand, a clean source of water and food, and she may end up being a great back alley mascot cat. She may even recover use of her leg to some degree.

Good luck. It tugs at the heartstrings, but without a home there's not much that can be done.

-Adam

To trap a cat once I was able to rent an animal trap from either the ASPCA or The Humane Society. It was a $50 deposit but you get $45 back when you return it. You just set the food in it & once they go in they're stuck. Just make sure there's someone to check it regularly.

If you do catch her you might be able to keep her as an outdoor cat if it's decently safe where you live. Or find a no-kill shelter which is a really good idea too.

My dogs will have fresh water in their bowls and full of food, then will proceed to go outside and drink brackish water from a basketball stand and eat grass. Or poop from the litter box.

The cat is probably in good health but needs to be fixed as quickly as possible before it makes Bob Barker cry.

Dave said:

it makes Bob Barker cry.

Click to expand...

Pretty sure he already did once he saw this tattoo:



-Adam