The Neighbour's cat

Mado

Alikay wrote: »

Sounds like your family and home would be ideal for a cat. The Cats Protection centres have dozens of lovely cats waiting for a home...I think we paid about £30 for Poppy 5 years ago, and she came spayed, identichipped and jabbed. Our previous cat came from there too and lasted 20 years.

Don't want to evangelise about the benefits of cat ownership here, but it sounds like you'd love one!

I do but OH doesn't.
Also, to be honest, we go on holidays in the summer for 3 weeks and I don't really want to have to deal with catteries and the other neighbours all seem to be dog people.
This one is puuurfect; she is gentle and good tempered and so tolerant with the kids. It's only that she gets in via the upstairs windows that gets me a bit as there will be no way to stop her in summer...
Hopefully when the family is back and my kids are at school it will all settle again (but she has been known to visit the school as well!:eek: ).

We enjoyed a similar situation while in Oz where another neighbour's cat was a frequent visitor... but never at night and I know he visited several other homes (I think he didn't like the other cat in his own home). We travelled home once a year for 4 weeks and he would be waiting to be let in the day after we came back.

viktory

As an owner I would be heartbroken if my cat decided to move out. Fortunately, she has never strayed further than the back garden.

Pink_butterfly_3

We had a bit of a todo with our old next door neighbours over our cat. They were secretly trying to entice her in all the time and feeding her when they could get her in.

I asked them politely the first time not too feed her or let her in their house. They completely denied doing either. Then a few days later I was out in the garden playing with our cat, but I was down the end of the garden which can't be seen from the neighbours windows. Lo and behold, my neighbour lent out the window and started calling our cat and rattling a box of cat treats. She whipped back in the house pretty sharpish when she saw me walk into view.

Gingham_Ribbon

Sounds like she likes the company. Hopefully when her owners return you'll get fewer visits. If they're half decent people they'll be glad he had some company and scraps of extra food while they were away.

One of mine became very pally with our next door neighbours when I moved in with DH. We used to leave the bedroom window open and he'd climb out and lie on top of the bay window underneath. But we found out that he'd been jumping onto next door's bay and climbing in their bedroom window.:o He also used to nip in through their back door. They never fed him though and in time he got bored and stopped doing it.

Mado

She doesn't come in for the food!!!!

Came in through the opened back door tonight and went straight upstairs... I had a worried moment as there was a plate of cold duck on the kitchen counter :eek:. Untouched.:D

viktory

Mado wrote: »

She doesn't come in for the food!!!!

Came in through the opened back door tonight and went straight upstairs... I had a worried moment as there was a plate of cold duck on the kitchen counter :eek:. Untouched.:D

Perhaps she would prefer it either alive or cooked

Mado

viktory wrote: »

Perhaps she would prefer it either alive or cooked

It was cooked :eek: and sliced to go on our salad...

susy_2

I have 3 visiting cats. Two of them as kittens played with my kitten (rescued from a busy main road by a friend). Unfortunately, my beautiful cat died some 18 mths later. They still come visiting and eating, but the neighbours who own them were away a lot and were happy for me to feed them. I love to see them and am happy for them to go back home.

Like wise I used to have 2 cats who visited an elderly neighbour. She used to feed them fresh salmon and chicken :eek: . I never minded. They were good company for her and always came home.

The 3rd cat however is a 'fairly' recent visitor from another neighbour but is causing me a lot of guilt! He never goes into their house (I was told he was not allowed in by children who played with their children) but they put food out for him. I was concerned that he was 'out' during the very cold nights over winter.

He started coming through the cat flap and eating the food I put out for my other visitors. I think he was also sleeping overnight for shelter. For a long time, when I opened the kitchen door, I would just see the flash of him disappearing. He was very, very timid but eventually became bolder. I did not have the heart to push him out of the door.

When he eventually allowed me to stroke him, I discovered that he had a really bad skin condition that left a bald patch (app 2x3") on his tummy plus an excema type rash on his body.

I did approach the neighbour, who I have to say was a really lovely person, but said that they had not noticed a problem?? They did take the cat to the vets and I contributed £20 as I felt guilty for pushing them into it, (but I would do the same again).

He is so much better now, but I feel very guilty because he is here 24/7.

I bumped into my neighbour a couple of weeks ago and asked how he was ,
She said that he was always dissappearing and they didn't see him .

He is now such a loving cat and loves to cuddle up on my knee.

I have to say, I would never normally encourage anybody else's cats, but I am really at a loss to know what to do with him.

Should I put him back out?

gravitytolls

Ah, Mado, what a lovely family you must be.

You've been chosen to be dear friends of this moggy. Why not leave it up to her to decide, if you don' tmind her swanning in and out for a cuddle and a feed...or moving in permanently.

tanith

I agree with gravitytolls if your neighbour seems not to mind it would be sad if you had to push him out...