Grrrr ... this is Kitty Boy, the cat. He "showed up" in the yard several months ago. He is "fixed" and very nice. We don't want an inside cat because it is too hard to keep him and the bunns safe and the extra work of scratch-proofing and litterboxing is not too inviting - not at all.
But - there are several feral cats about - all over this area. They come up and get in fights with Kitty Boy - he has had two V. E. T. trips and has to stay in for 14 days to recover from the latest altercation. He lives in the bathroom for now, for 7 more days yet - not a good long term plan.
My idea is to put no food or water outside, and put Kitty Boy out, after the 7 more days, during the day and let him live in the bathroom all night - hope for the cat-fight best. My other idea is to find Kitty Boy a nice home.
BL likes Kitty Boy a lot. He likes to lay on the couch when she reads or sit in the chair with her to watch tv - a nice citizen. If he just didn't have claws, need a litter box, and not eat stinky food - gosh things would be super-de-duper!
BL likes Kitty Boy a lot. He likes to lay on the couch when she reads or sit in the chair with her to watch tv - a nice citizen. If he just didn't have claws, need a litter box, and not eat stinky food - gosh things would be super-de-duper!She has consulted many authorities and the current best advice comes from the husband of the local county animal control officer. "Go to the Sporting Goods shop and buy a BIG bottle of Cougar Pee. Sprinkle it around the edge of the yard and the other cats will stay out and Kitty Boy will stay in." We will need several bottles, our yard is about an acre that needs the sprinkles around the edge. And what about when it rains?
So - advice? Ideas? Votes? Can I send you a cat? (Could someone at least feel a bit sorry for me??)
22 comments:
Is there a shelter in your area? I'm sure they could find the kitty a good home.
Yeah, I do feel sorry for you RG, this is tricky.....and that's a whole lot of cougar pee that you're gonna need....how bout a shotgun?
So you're sure the kitty and the bunnies wouldn't get along? I've had three bunnies, and never once was it a problem that I had a cat. If anything, I've always known bunnies to make it clear right up front who's boss, and it's *not* the cat!
difficult one, I know that cats and bunnies can get along okay but I know it's not guarenteed, though i would have thought your buns were clever and co-ordinated enough to make sure the cat never took over
Re the scratching, have you try a scratch post/rug? He needs to sharpen his claws like bunnies need to chew/dig - sorta a irresistible instinct but if you can arrange for an appropriate outlet it's not quite so destructive to your home. Our kitty had a sissal rug and you can get posts too.
No idea if cougar pee works but you don't literally have to use your property boundaries - cats don't read deeds. Just use any natural 'boundaries' on it like flowerbeds, hedging, trees - like a real cat would. I should think if you sprinkle it into/under plants it will have a bit of protection from the weather.
Well now you could front declaw kitty boy there. Also I've always heard cats and buns get along great. As far as stinky food and litter pans, plenty of cats get along fine on dry food and there are a lot of new cat litters made from recycled newspaper and stuff like feline pine so it wouldn't be that different from rabbit litter pans. I vote keep kitty boy! If Hef's Dad wasn't allergic I'd take him in a second!
Hmmmm, I have heard wolf urine works too. I was in a similar jam myself. If you let him out during the day he will go after the birds and wild bunnies and be bringing you presents. I personally am agaisnt declawing any animal. My kitty would let me clip the sharp points off his nails and my bunnies always beat the crap out of him. Good Luck to you.
I've been there ... hurt cat wondered up on porch ...lived in bathroom for a while, expensive vet trip ... then off to the SPCA ... They only took him because my daughter worked there. They are bursting at the seems with cats right now. Too many strays out there and people surrendering. Broke my heart, but I'm bursting at my seems with animals right now and it wouldn't be good for the ones I have to introduce anymore. They already don't get enough attention!!
I feel very sorry for you RG, it's a yucky situation.
You can buy cougar pee? How do they harvest that?
D- repeat. We do not shoot kitties. We do not shoot kitties.
I would advocate for keeping Kitty Boy, but I don't think declawing is a good idea. What if he got outside and needed to defend himself? Then again, I know cats and rabbits can get along, but I would worry that since your rabbits are caged, they would resent the cat for being free range and never get along. I know that can happen if you have one bun caged and one bun free.
Good luck finding him a home. He seems like a good guy.
Jon won't even let me take in my (recently passed) grandmother's kitty that I adopted for her a few years ago, so no was can Kitty Boy come here.
At first I thought I had to "collect" the cougar pee ... and just could not imagine how that was going to work. Cats cannot be de-clawed. Kitty Boy is so well behaved. I think he would get along with the bunnies. But I think we need to practice with someone ... like maybe Winston (just kidding ... sort of). Our shelters are full. And then what if the new people didn't love him? What if he missed us? I've bonded with him. We need your ideas! RG needs his fans to rally around and say, "You can do this, RG! You can add a cat to your family and still have a good life."
BL, you think like I do! I got an extra life insurance policy just so I could put the North Texas Rabbit Sanctuary on there with the funds to keep my bunz indefinitely should something happen to me because I know they understand that they would mourn and that they need to be kept with their bond mates. I couldn't bear the thought of Mr. Jamal being without Miss Luna or Ding without Coop ... they love each other!!! And Rosie and Brewster and the only ones in the world who can tolerate each other ... And Rosie's back is delicate, etc... Wouldn't be the same if anybody else took them! The NTRS has kept my bunz for me on vacation and they know them by name and personality. Anyway, I know how you feel! Is there a shed he could use as his outside house, maybe with a high up "cat" door he could use? I dunno ... that's a tough one! I know how RG feels too though ... I wish you the best and feel for both of you, the bunz and the cat!
Cats make good foils.
You should keep him around.
They are also liars.
Never believe them.
Evil Stepsister's predecessor was Ferm. Ferm convinced the peeps in another house that he was homeless.
They adopted him.
He had two homes for a while.
Ankles knew.
He smelled like someone else's perfume.
She put a note on him:
"Please stop feeding our cat. He is getting fat."
The idiot wore it for his next tryst!
Well, RG, it's a dilemma for you, I can see. Being both a cat and rabbit lover and owner, I opt for keeping him, especially since BL likes him and they seem to be buddies.
Don't declaw if you don't have to, especially since he is an adult cat and there are ferals who pick on him. I've also been through hundreds of dollars in vet bills due to our inside/outside cats getting into fights with cat bullies. Not fun, so the three newest don't get to go outside at all.
My cats and rabbits are only out together with supervision. I know lots of cases where cats and rabbits become best budds, but I can't really allow the cats that much trust. One of our cats became really good buddies with our LillieBun, but I still only allowed supervised play. They have always gotten rotations at house liberty. If he is accustomed to being confined, then maybe you can work something out, but I know that it means one more thing to keep up with and work out. As to food--dry is best anyway. Litter box--my husband sweetly does litter duty for me every morning, bless him. You and BL could negotiate that. [sorry for the excessive length]
Oh! Husband would do litter box duty every morning? What a fabulous idea! Thank you to the person who wrote that. I think if we add up the votes ... the cat stays!
'My other idea is to find Kitty Boy a nice home.'
That one. The first option runs the risk of him getting infected with FIV from fights our hit by cars.
Is he neutered? My cat was a stray and the first thing I did was get him vaccinated and neutered - I didn't know if he'd say with us at that point, but the way saw it, at least if he went on his way I knew he was not going to make any more unwanted kittens and he had some basic immunity from things like feline leukemia.
I'm on twitter so let me tweet to some of the re-homers I follow and see if we can get a taker for this gorgeous boy :).
Kitty Boy was dumped in our area some time late last year. He and I "connected" in November, I think. He zig-zagged in front of me when I was on my way to feed the birds; I almost fell over him. I took him to the vet; he was about 2 years old or less and already neutered; but quite skinny. I'm thinking perhaps family had financial issues. We live in the country, on a hill, little chance he can get run over. A good home would be wonderful ... but it would be like giving Chico to a good home. I love this cat and the new person would have to love him as well. And take good care of him. Thank you everyone for caring so much about our situation here. It is really very touching. Plus ... now that RG might do all the litter boxes every morning, I will have even more time to devote to the care of the cat! A friend told me that cats who adopt you bring magic into your life. I can attest to that.
Aw crap ... this is backfiring. Does anyone have a bit of room for a reasonably good rabbit-tender???
BL-I know what you mean. My Oscar kitty took a long time before he would let me touch him. My bunnies actually showed him that people were okay. I could not give him up and we made it work. He was locked up when the bunnies were out and vice versa. Oscar has gone across the bridge but he was a great cat.
RG and BL. We have six cats and three rabbits. They have no interest in each other, other than the occasional polite nose bump between rabbit and cat (chester and Peaches, mostly). Some are boy cats and some are girl cats and some are more assertive than others, but all respect the bunnies. In fact, the bunnies make some of them nervous.
Buy a couple of those cardboard scratcher boxes for them. Put them near the things you don't want scratched Our cats all have intact clawss, and they do not scratch the furniture--we have 5 or 6 of the cardboard things scattered around the house. You do not have to declaw anyone, but it would be kinder than giving this adult kitty to the shelter. Litter boxes--fill it deeply, then scoop twice, three times a day at least (use the clumping kind, unscented). Put it in an out-of-the way place and you won't care. The person who loves the cat the most should be the main scooper, but other than that, it's not such a big deal, even with 6 cats. Yeah, ours were all strays, and if we hadn't taken them in, they'd have been euthanized at the shelter. Sometimes they're a pain in the butt, but when you curl up on the sofa with kitty, or kitty sleeps next to your head (3 of our cats like to sleep with us on the bed), you just hear the purring. Save the kitty, RG!
Through some odd technical thing, my first comment didn't get posted until much later than I submitted it (right after Christina's) and none of the others had been posted yet, so I hadn't read BL's first comment. Having read that one, I really think that BL should get to keep Kitty Boy. Now that Husband Scooping Every Morning is just a thing here at our house--you two have to work that out on your own, but RG--we have three cats in the house all the time and two in-and-outers, so there's more to scoop than you or BL would have to do each day (I really should give him a wonderful prize for his dedication). Also, back in our earlier years he didn't even really care for cats that much. Now he talks to them, pets them, they cuddle with him, and he is as fond of them as I am. He probably wouldn't admit it, but I hear it in his voice when he's talking to them. Give Kitty Boy a chance, RG.
Our bunnies have always had some personality issues with one another outside of their bondmates, so we've never had any all bunny total run of the house situations with them and I've handled the cat and rabbit thing the same way. The ones who get along get to play in a room in which we can be present and supervise. If I have to leave the room, some of the furry critters have to be segregated. It isn't much more troublesome than having children around, especially middle schoolers.
Come on, RG. BL needs her Kitty Boy. And I quote a wise and well-respected person, "You can do this, RG! You can add a cat to your family and still have a good life."
Oof... time to weight the pros and cons, I guess. It can be tough knowing what to do in situations like this.
If there's a good local shelter that does high traffic in cats, or that has a no-kill policy (aside from euthanasia, of course), I think it would be a good idea to surrender the cat to them.
Normally I am against the practice of keeping outdoor cats, but at least this cat is fixed, so if a shelter is not a viable option you'd be doing well to give it shelter at night.
Turning an outdoor cat into an indoor cat can be difficult. Once they get a taste of outdoor life they often won't forget it. Also it would require rearranging of your home and lifestyle, as you've mentioned. It comes down to: is it worth it?
I think you're right not to trust the cat alone with the rabbits. We've all read stories about "I did it without any problems" but I think we've also read stories, too many, that end with "they got on so well for years but this morning I woke to a dead bunny."
As for cougar pee... how on earth do they collect that!? Never mind, I suspect I don't want to know.
Oh, but I strongly encourage you to *not* declaw him. They're so sore and sad as they heal... with those big eyes looking at you, I think you will regret it.
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