Kitten!

[jojotbird.livejournal.com]

On my walk home today I encountered a cute little kitten (~6 weeks old) that appeared to be living under the stairs of an unoccupied building near my house... After dinner I went back with a can of food and the kitten returned along with its mom. Both the mom and the kitten appear to be long-haired calico cats and seem to be healthy with voracious appetites. I didn't see a collar on the mom and am guessing that she's a stray (although maybe she's yours and she's lost?). Does anyone have advice about what we should do about these cats? Does anyone want to provide them with a new home?

Comments

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Call Animal Control.

[sungold123.livejournal.com]

This should definitely be your first step - most people who lose their animals will call animal control first to see if they have had a report.

Also, I'm not sure if animal control does this (?), but you can have them scanned for a microchip. If animal control doesn't, any vet will - they just run a wand over the animals, and if their pets have had them micro chipped, they will have their owners' info, if they have an owner.

[smammy]

TNR, baby!

[dianamp04.livejournal.com]

I would suggest try contacting a non-kill shelter or rescue. Your probably going to have to call a lot of them because most of them are full. They can perhaps trap them and find them homes. Are you willing to foster them until permanent homes are found? Are they friendly? That would be a great help for any rescue. I volunteer at a rescue and we're beyond capacity at the moment. :)

Here's a list - http://www.cffinc.org/nkshelters.html#Massacheuetts

Good luck!

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

The responsible thing is to make sure they get fixed. The mother probably isn't completely feral since she came and took the food, but she may not be a good candidate for adoption. The kitten, however, has a pretty good chance of it.

If you google around, you should be able to find a program in the area that would help. If you want the responsibility yourself, call a local vet and ask for advice.

[ellf.livejournal.com]

Experience shows that the thing to do is to create a creepy livejournal account and post about them every day for a week.

[bex77]

The nice people from Saint Meows Shelter in Somerville have an open house 4 blocks from the T station in Davis (just inside the Francesca Street door of First Church at 89 College Ave.) on Thursday evenings from 6-8 pm. You could stop in there tonight and chat with them. Maybe they can help or know who could. Tell them Beckie from the theater group sent you. I've seen people bringing in rescued cats from the neighborhood there, after setting it up with them. If you can't make it there, check them out at http://saintmeows.org/

[yttrai.livejournal.com]

After you call the Animal Control and see if anyone reported a similar pair missing, i would either call Charles River Alleycats (http://www.charlesriveralleycats.org/contact.php) or possibly Alliance for Animals, though if Charles River is full they can give you advice on who to call next. But their network of foster parents is pretty solid, so they should have room.

And then i would post "Found" flyers with the cats' description, asking if they belong to anyone, and stating you took them in (if you did). I did this with a stray who got shut in my basement by accident, and it turns out she was a stray but within a few hours the family who'd been feeding her called me and wanted to adopt her for real. So, happy ending.

Whatever you do, updates here are appreciated by us :)

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely, call Animal Control and Charles River Alleycats. That's how I helped get a nest of kittens captured from under the hood of my neighbor's seldom-driven SUV a year ago ... and two of them became or sweet and cuddly housepets! (The rest were adopted out to other families)

http://hauntmeister.livejournal.com/287364.html
http://hauntmeister.livejournal.com/287971.html
http://hauntmeister.livejournal.com/290061.html