Community Chat

[JusMe]

Several months ago an orange cat decided my front porch would be his new home.

It is a male that I would estimate to be around 2 yrs old. He has not been fixed. He appears to be in fairly good health.

He was VERY skittish at first and I could get no where near him, but I put food out for him and talked to him each day, and now we have reached the point where he will let me pet him.

He will not let me pick him up. I tried carefully but the results were terrible. He panicked so badly that he lost control of his bowels. His extreme reaction leads me to believe he has never been held by a human before therefore I truly believe he is feral and not just stray. He became leery of me for a few days, but has come back around to letting me pet him again.

I borrowed a have-a-heart trap today and am hoping to catch him and take him to my vet to get a health check, his vaccinations and have him neutered (sorry little guy!)

I have never dealt with a feral cat before and I have a couple of questions...

1) If I am able to catch him and have him vetted, do you think that he will be so freaked out that when I bring him back home he will hate me and I may never see him again?

2) Do you think there is any chance that one day he will ever be able to move into my house and actually be a pet?

I want you to know that I am not vetting him on the condition that he will become my pet. I will vet him even if he runs away and I never see him again. I just want to know that his health is protected and he is unable to reproduce, no matter who's front porch he decides to live on...

But it would be nice if he could some day become our family member

Thanks for reading my post and I soooo appreciate any of you that share your feral cat knowledge/experience with me.