Cats Toilet Training plus more.

Question
Hi Iris,

It's Laura, remember me? The one who couldn't find her kittens? Well we did find them and they are semi-wild, as is the mother, so she did not bring them to us. But we leave food for them as they do not come within 10m of the house (the kittens, not parents).

The thing is, we have now moved house and was wondering if you could give me advice. At the old house there was a Tom cat and a female cat (who had the kittens). Because they were wild cats that we abandoned we started feeding them and so on and they became tamer, but they never really slept in the house and when we came across them they were already semi-wild. Anyway, we started feeding them and then the female cat grew and had the kittens next door to us, in a construction site. She has slowly brought them closer to the house, but very slowly.

We then had to move house in the last 2 weeks and knew that the cat and her babies would resist if we tried to take them in a box (we tried picking one up and it bit my boyfriend hard in the finger and he had to have a tetanus shot).

We also didn't know if the tom cat would come either.

So what we have done is left the cat, her kittens, and the tom cat at the old house (which has no-one in it as it is being demolished in a few weeks. We go back every 3/4 days and leave them a whole box of biscuits and a few cans of cat food.

However I feel bad about leaving them there. We can't keep driving back and feeding them but i don't think they're tame enough to take with us (maybe the Tom and the female but not the kittens).

Do you think I should go and get them? Will they be able to survive now we have been feeding them for so long (about 6 months to 1 year)? Do you think they depend on us now or would they be able to cope? I feel bad about leaving them there as when i go back to feed them they still hang around the house and look so lonely, but they are still semi-wild cats and have never seen a vet or anything in their life. Would they be alright to leave or should we try to tame them and take them back to our new home?

The other thing is we actually have 2 different kittens now (which have been tame from birth), so if we brought all the cats together we would have 6, which is a bit much!!!!


The other question I had was: of the tame kittens we have, one is a boy, one girl. The girl is very well toilet trained, but if i don't watch the boy like a hawk he will go to the toilet anywhere - doonas, towels, plastic bags. It's really annoying having to watch him. Would it have anything to do with how clean the kitty litter is? Or can't he hold it in long enough to get to his little box, or maybe it's a male thing, I don't know.

If you could give me some advice on our stray cats as well as our tame ones, that would be great.

Thanks!

Laura xoxoox

Answer
Wow, that's a lot. I'm glad the kittens survived. It is not too late to socialize them if you can catch them, but obviously you need to do this carefully. Can you get a large cat carrier and put a bed and food in it and leave it by the old house? If you are lucky, maybe they will come and get into it and you can sneak up on them and close the door and take them with you to the new house.

Are there animal shelters near where you live? In this country we have a lot of rescue groups that deal with feral cats and they use humane traps to catch them, then spay/neuter them and release them back into the wild if they cannot be socialized. Some can, some can't. It takes work.
If there is a shelter in your area, maybe they would have traps and allow you to use them if you explain the situation, or have some other advice for you. I don't know enough about what is in the area to be able to tell you whether they can survive or not. How cold does it get? Are there other people in the area that are likely to feed them?

Yes, 6 cats is a lot but if 4 of them are basically outdoor cats, it is not that bad. You do need to have them fixed as soon as possible, though, or they will continue to reproduce. The female may already be pregnant again. I think you probably need to make some sort of effort to rescue them and move them to your new house. It is better for them, and from the way you are talking about it, you are probably going to feel guilty unless you try. If it doesn't work, though, let go of it -- you have made a reasonable attempt to help them and that has to be enough.

About the male kitten -- how old is he? He could be marking his territory already. In which case you need to neuter him ASAP. Or he could have an infection. I would take him to a vet if possible. Cleaning the litter box more frequently or trying a different kind of litter might also make a difference. Clumping litter of some sort is usually preferrd over the granular clay variety or wood chips so if you are using one of the latter you might consider switching.

Hope this helps

iris