How long do you wait for a cat to be claimed

hb2

It is a few years since our cat turned up on our doorstep. At the time we contacted the local CP branch and they said they consider a cat 'theirs' if the owners have not turned up after 2 weeks of thorough searching.

In our case the owners turned up in response to an ad in the local paper, even though I had put posters up in the street they lived in. It has a happy ending because they actually agreed to let me keep the cat and he has been with us for 7 years now

anchorage40

Gavin83 wrote: »

When you say she's staying in the house I assume she can actually get out of the house should she want to?

No she can't. We did let her out on the first day in case she needed the toilet as we hadn't time to find a litter tray. She came straight back into the house after disappearing for about 20 mins, but now we have a litter tray which she uses.
She's already had a run in with a local dog, and I'm not sure whether she has been spayed so we decided to keep her in. She doesn't seem interested in going out at all.
A neighbour has tried the paper collar on her to see if she did go back to home but no one got in contact.

anchorage40

The SPCA were of the same opinion when it comes to microchipping - it goes to show how important it is.

Fire_Fox

anchorage40 wrote: »

No she can't. We did let her out on the first day in case she needed the toilet as we hadn't time to find a litter tray. She came straight back into the house after disappearing for about 20 mins, but now we have a litter tray which she uses.
She's already had a run in with a local dog, and I'm not sure whether she has been spayed so we decided to keep her in. She doesn't seem interested in going out at all.
A neighbour has tried the paper collar on her to see if she did go back to home but no one got in contact.

Paws under the table.

Shanris

For me it took couple of weeks

thriftyemma

I agree with searching further afield. We were adopted by a stray several years ago, scrawny wretch of a thing wandered in our open back door and helped himself to the scraps of dinner. After a couple of weeks of him visiting us, we gained his trust, and were able to capture him and take him to a vet.

Fortunately, he did have a microchip, and his owners were contacted. It turns out he was over 3 miles from home (they reckon he hitched a ride in the back of a truck) and his owners were over the moon to have him back.

Happy endings all round really, as meeting Frank (as we named him) led us to getting cats of our own!