OMG, my cat would never want to be wet. She would freak.
Lol thatās so cute @1214momā !
Since the thread has new life, on Sunday we locked in the feral cat weāve been feeding because of the blizzard. Didnāt want to have her on our conscience. Sheās been settling in well, expanding her comfort zone and moving into different spaces. She sat in the living room on a chair all afternoon. She loves to be petted and to have her belly rubbed but we havenāt dared try to pick her up yet. She is nippy if she gets excited or the first time you do anything new with her but she learns quickly. Three issues: she tends to stink, something weāve experienced with walk-ins before until they get used to being inside, and her pee reeks. Probably because she drinks so little being outside and also hasnāt adjusted to constant water supply. So there have been candles burning and Febreze sprayed and I empty the litter boxes a lot.
The third issues is noise. She was silent before and now sheās ridiculously loud. Talks a lot and is the loudest animal weāve ever had. Itās like having a baby wake you during the night.
^^^^Wow. Iāve never been around a feral cat that closely before. The odor problems are interesting.
@Lergnom, thatās awesome! Have you done this before? When I was a kid, we used to have cats that had found a hiding place in the basement of the school where my mom taught and once one of our cats adopted a feral kitten. It took years before she came inside and she remained skittish all her life.
There are degrees of feral, from former house cats to cats used to living around people to the complete ferals you never see in the day unless a female is in heat. All our cats have been ferals except for the 1st one long ago. We have a 15 year old who was born in the yard, a maybe 5 year old who showed up starving - we think an abandoned pet - and this one we think may be fairly young (but we, in truth, arenāt sure itās a neutered male or a female). This isnāt intentional; we wouldnāt necessarily even choose to have cats (my wife, for example, grew up in a very dog family), but we have a big yard in an urban area and this is where they come.
Iāve watched this cat go into the litter box but my experience is they learn how to use one if a) you put dirt on top of one and one time and theyāll use a litter box without dirt or b) other cats and they see and smell whatās going on. My bit of knowledge is feral cats donāt drink much so their pee is concentrated and reeks of ammonia and a bit of ammonia cuts through to our senses. Iām trying to increase her drinking, but sheās not dehydrated: her coat isnāt dull and doesnāt pull away from the body. Outdoors they get much of their water from eating their prey.
Iāve seen little difference in how the ferals bond versus other cats because cats naturally vary from social to this person only. A lot depends on trust and the effort put in to establish trust.
Iāve noticed this cat is extremely rule bound: for months when sheād venture in sheād only go to the same exact 3 or 4 places, even when we started to close her inside for hours at a time. Sheās been expanding her realm since being locked in and is now on the foot of our bed for the 1st time. The heat blows there so she should be happy. I found her sitting on the futon downstairs earlier, another first.
The real shock is how loud she is. She never made a sound outside and only tiny squeaks inside and now sheās bellowing. I hope that moderates. The other ferals didnāt change their voices: talked outside, talked inside.
Thanks for resurrecting this thread. I love to hear about the feral cat. I had a cat that we got from a Petsmart adoption site and when we first got her home she was a bellower. She was freaked out by looking through the sliding glass door to the back yard. We put aluminum foil up to block the view. Cat later died from kitty cancer, we got two new cats, theyāre going on 6 years old now - aluminum foil is still on the door. 
BUT - Iām still having cat box issues. I call my cats āstinkyā and ābarfyā - but in actuality they both stink and they both barf. I cut down on the barfing by clipping their long fur. But I canāt get a handle on the stink. I was actually in the market for new cat boxes so Iām so grateful for this thread and the diy cat boxes since I donāt want to spend a fortune for some fancy covered box - when I could buy a Rubbermaid box for $5. Iām going to try that and pray it helps.
My cat is a little barfy, but not stinky, thank goodness.
We adopted a feral cat after I hit him with my car. There was a whole colony near my house, and this one had wandered into the street and shot in front of my tires before I could react. Fortunately I wasnāt driving too fast, and he only suffered a broken hip. I scooped him up in a beach towel I had in the car and rushed him to my vet. Oh, but even after being cleaned up and putting on some weight, he was a sorry specimen, a textbook case of inbreeding and poor nutritionāvery stunted in size, with eyes so far around the sides of his head that he looked like one of those sketches of aliens, and to add insult to injury, he had a pronounced limp from the break. Once heād recovered, I took him home, feeling guilty about the whole incident and resigned to the fact that fate has put him in my hands. The accident apparently knocked the wildness out of him, because he was quite docile, even allowed me to clip his nails, and adapting to the litter box with ease. But my two Raggies never accepted himāhe was so much smaller and so odd looking that I wonder if they even identified him as a fellow feline. Eventually one of the vet techs offered to take him, and we decided that was the best solution. I often thought about how strange it must have been for himāone day heās part of a colony of cats living a nasty and brutish life with no contact with humans, and the next heās being fussed over by a bunch of people, living indoors and never seeing his āfamilyā again.
Yay for you, @Lergnomāā !
A couple of the cats weāve had were strays, and they were stinky at first. Not their pee so much, but they passed a lot of gas. It cleared up after a week or two. I assumed it was a matter of diet, and getting used to decent food after eating God knows what on the streets.
MommaJ - I had a coworker who got a cat that way. He hit it with his car, took it to the vet, and brought it home. He loved that cat - I think it turned into a great little pet. Your cat probably thought he hit the jackpot. No more foraging for food, just laze around in the sun and let those pesky humans tend to his needs. I wonder how many feral cats run in front of cars on purpose 
Lergnom, I wonder if feeding wet food to the feral cat might help with hydration and litter box smell - you could even dilute it a bit with water or added gravy if s/heās not drinking enough water?
She gets wet and dry. One odd thing is the others have been getting some as a treat and theyāve lost weight, maybe because the full calorie food is more satisfying and they donāt overeat. Maybe reduced calorie cat food is like diet soda and isnāt the right choice.
I expect the stink will diminish. Billy absolutely reeked when he came in. He still isnāt exactly a rose, especially since he likes to hang out under cars and comes in smelling of the undersides. The issue is more my wife complaining about the ammonia smell. Humans smell very small quantities of ammonia.
The other issue is sheās far more feral than the others have been with regard to being handled. I did spend 2 days in the hospital last year and her first reaction to anything new has usually been to bang teeth on you. She does learn quickly, often one or two repetitions, but building trust has taken many times longer.
What a puddie!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/29/insanity-cat-luna-compilation-video_n_6557902.html
Oh I figured out a big part of the smell issue: sheās decided that since sheās here, she needs to mark the territory. Iāve caught her marking just about every path with just a hint.
@MommaJ and @PhotoOp, I love these stories. Iām going to go with PhotoOpās view that the cats end up happier once they get used to a new way of life. May Sarton wrote a sweet little book entitled The Fur Person about her own adoptee and how she imagined his transformation.
@Lergnom, oh yuck on the marking. I hope you are more skilled at convincing her to stop that behavior than I ever was. We had one female cat that insisted on markingā¦for 19 years. The best we could do was get her to stick to one limited area that was more easily cleaned up than, say, the dining room rug.
Some of the marking is friction with the 15 year old who can be somewhat a jerk. They just a had a tiff. Theyāll have to work that out because itās snowing again and none of them are going out today.
Interesting point about dehydration. We had a cat who occasionally marked indoors despite being fixed, but his urine didnāt smell. That cat drank water like crazy.
@Lizardly, I think Iām like Lergnomās wife in that Iām extremely sensitive to the smell of ammonia. And H is even worse than I am. Our cat was spayed and wasnāt a male 
but we both thought her urine reeked.
This cat harassed our older cat when she arrived as a kitten and then was harassed by two younger cats that showed up much later. With the occasional venture onto a favorite bathroom rug, the others have all been faithful to their litter boxes, thank goodness.
I had a neutered male cat who began spraying after our first child was born and he felt displaced. It was the WORST odor ever, just horrible.