AARGH! Moral dilemma time!

[pbrim]

There is this feral cat hanging around our yard. I am no stranger to cats, I have two, my friends I rent the other side of the duplex to have 5, and the neighbor to the other side has 1. All 8 get along reasonably and wander in and out of each other's houses (we all have cat doors) and eat each other's food

Comments

[houseboatonstyx]

First move: Get a vet to scan him for a microchip. (A mobile vet might do this, or a local animal group might have a scanner. Without telling anything more than that he's a stranger and you want to send him home. If your own wounds are too visible, get someone else to do it.

If no chip, go through usual steps "Have you seen this Yellow Cat? - phone 555-5555". Flyers with photographs to veterinary clinics etc, maybe someone will recognize him.

And/or, take him to a vet and request a physical checkup, vaccinations, etc, and a reasonable quarantine. No need to tell that he's bitten anyone etc.

If he checks out non-rabid, and no neighborhood connections turn up.... Well, I've lived in ranch country and the cats in most excellent health are the ferals at isolated hay barns.

If you do end up considering the shots, verify just what is involved. Modern methods may not be as bad as the legends.

{{{ adds to Friends List, hugs }}}

[sophiaserpentia]

I second the suggestion about quarantine. The typical protocol is 10 days, and it's acceptable if there's no reason to believe the animal is rabid:
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/exposure/animals/domestic.html

The vet may bill you for the quarantine, though, and it won't be cheap. But if the cat is otherwise healthy and not too antisocial, they may be willing to TNR him after the quarantine period.

Edit to add: I know you don't wish the cat any harm, but in my opinion you have to take care of yourself and you can't mess around with rabies. It's not likely - rabies is really rare - but one reason it's rare is because we have an established protocol.

[houseboatonstyx]

If he's at all anti-social, he'd be safer somewhere not in contact with children or pets. Even if you/OP get him vaccinated and chipped, he could still get in trouble for biting someone else.

[houseboatonstyx]

Pat, here's a story I just ran across that made me think you might need to learn more about your local veternarians' 'policies' before taking the cat to them.

So all along this vet's office has said they would sterilize and vaccinate this cat for $150 and keep it until they found a home for it. Since it's so shy and scared I asked them today if we could pay and have them do the medical stuff, and then we would foster the cat for a week or so to help it be more adoptable and then bring it back for them to find a home for it. They said that wasn't the way they normally did things so they would have to ask the owner when he came in a noon.
[....]
He finally called me back and said this was a courtesy they offered their customers and if it was too feral to be adopted then they had to euthanize it, which no one ever mentioned before.
http://meret.livejournal.com/1112180.html

[tigerbright]

Honestly, dangerous animals are still dangerous.

[johnpalmer]

Well, rabies is lowish probability but exceedingly high risk. You need to do *something*. If the animal were to get run over by a car, or wander away, you'd have no choice but to get the shots.

I agree with those who reference getting a vet involved, either for quarantine, chip-scanning, or something.

The "good" news about rabies is that it's slow to progress and even if an animal *is* infected, it's only in the final stages of the disease where it's able to be transmitted by the bite. And you have time for inoculation, even if the cat was infected.

But you should do something.

I would feel awful about having animal control kill the kitty - but a feral animal that wanders into people's houses is a danger - I'm not saying you *should* go to animal control, but you shouldn't disregard the question of what to do if you can't find a better answer relatively quickly.