User:Karenhoppe/sandbox

<!-- EDIT BELS LINE - When I first saw the cat one morning in June, it was scrounging for seeds spilled under the bird feeders in the back yard. It was a tiny thing, not more than a few months old. Its skeletal appearance and desperate hunt for food told me it was just days away from death by starvation.

"I have to give that cat something to eat," I told my husband.

"If you feed it, you'll never get rid of it," he replied.

"If I don't feed it, it will die."

I took a can of cat food out to the yard. The little cat disappeared into the woods as soon as it saw me, but I set the can down under the bird feeders. When I checked a few hours later, the food was gone.

The cat reappeared a couple days later. I took it another can of food. Again it ran off but later the can was empty.

It didn't take long before the cat was coming back every day, just as my husband had predicted. Not wanting to use up any more of the pricey food intended for my indoor cat with special dietary needs, I bought a big bag of inexpensive dry food and kept it with the bird seed in a storage bin on the patio. My husband agreed that having an outdoor cat wouldn't be such a bad thing; it would help control the burgeoning ground squirrel population that was decimating our garden and retaining walls. So my goal was to tame the cat enough to get it into a carrier and to the vet to be neutered and vaccinated. Then it could live out its days in our back yard and woods.

What is a feral cat and can it be tamed?

A feral cat is a cat that grew up in the wild with no human contact or only negative contact. In contrast, a stray cat is a previously domesticated cat that was lost or abandoned. While strays may approach humans for food, exhibit behaviors like purring and meowing, and even allow themselves to be touched and petted, feral cats are scared of humans and view them as any other large animal – a potential predator. Feral cats tend to live in colonies in abandoned buildings, junked cars or other sheltered areas near a food source, like a restaurant dumpster. With threats of starvation, disease, bad weather, and attacks by other animals, the lifespan of a feral cat is less than two years on average.

Some believe a feral cat cannot be tamed. Depending on a number of factors, including the cat's age, personality and experiences in the wild, socialization is possible. It will take much time and patience. The older the cat, the more difficult it will be. Some cats may never become comfortable with human interaction, even after several months. Other cats may bond only with the human who socialized them, making them unsuitable for adoption elsewhere. There is a much greater chance of success taming a stray that has reverted to feral behavior than a cat that never had human contact, especially if its past interactions with humans were positive.