A wild stray started visiting my cats through the backyard fence. I figured that with winter on the way, I needed to catch it, but how?
Stray Cat Outside the Fence
It was an October day in 2015 when I heard Wolfy growling in the backyard, I went outside to see what was the cause. That’s when I saw the stray cat. It was wild and ran off when it saw me. The next few days, the cat kept coming back. I needed to figure out a way to catch it because winter was coming and I couldn’t stand the thought of it trying to survive in the snow. If I walked towards it to pick it up, it would disappear into the brush and trees.
Buying a Small Mammal Cage
I decided to buy a cage to catch the cat, so I went to Home Depot and found an assortment of cages. I chose a small mammal cage. It cost about $25.00 at the time, but it wasn’t wasted because I would be using it to catch this cat three times. I would also catch a grey fox (Read about it here. Adventures With Grey Foxes) and spotted skunks that got inside my house.
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Catching the Cat
After I figured out how to set the trap, I added some canned cat food for bait and set the trap up outside the backyard gate. It wasn’t long before the hungry cat was caught. This frightened cat had the ugliest meow I have ever heard. You can hear it in the video at the end.
Columbus above and Kika below are shown chekcking out the stray caught in the cage.
Safe Zone for the Cat
Since the cat was wild, I thought it would be good to put it in a cage that my former husband had made for baby chicks when we were raising chickens. It was large enough for a cat box, cat bed, and a water and food bowl. The cat could get used to the other cats and my daughter and me through the cage.
There was only one problem. The cage didn’t have a door. It had to be lifted. So, I had to lift the cage and open the trap cage and hope my captive would go into the cage. Well, this cat would have none of it and ran behind our piano. While I was wondering how to catch it without getting bit (I had learned wisdom as a vet tech.), my daughter, Ivana just walked over and reached behind the piano and picked it up. Incredibly, she didn’t get bit.
The Stray Needed a Bath
My five cats, Pebbles, Wolfy, Columbus, Rory, and Kika, were not allowed to run free and get into the poison oak because my daughter and I were allergic to it. This stray cat would have been all through it and she would need a bath. As a vet assistant, I had given many baths to cats with various reactions. Some were submissive and then there was the opposite extreme that needed sedation.
Of my six cats, Columbus was the one to go ballistic. He was always jumping and clawing to try to get away. If I lost my hold on him, he would jump over my shoulder and proceed to shred my back. Rory became terrified of going in the motorhome and especially the bathroom for fear of getting another bath.
The day we caught the stray, our generator had stopped working, so a bath wasn’t possible because the water heater wouldn’t work without power. The next day or so, we brought home a rental generator and were ready to go.
Ivana wanted to be the one to bathe the cat, so I let her wear one of my smocks from when I worked as a vet assistant. It would protect her clothes from the poison oak. As a vet assistant, I gave many cat baths. There were two extremes, cats that became submissive and cats that went ballistic and needed sedation. Columbus is an example of a ballistic cat. He has climbed up my shoulder and shredded my back when he gets away from me. In this situation, the stray cat was very submissive and didn’t even try to get away.
Drying the Stray Cat
After the bath, Ivana dried the cat as best she could with a towel and then used a blow drier. Again, the cat was submissive and didn’t move.
Sexing the Stray Cat
After the bath, we checked to see if the cat was a male or female. In the video below, I call the cat a ‘he’. I sure was wrong. It turned out to be a female.
Naming Our New Cat
Since Ivana took a liking to this cat, she was the one to name her. She said that since she was a fraidy cat, her name would be Freya. This is how Freya became our sixth cat. She was accepted by the other cats as you can see in the following two pictures with Wolfy and Columbus.
Time to Watch the Video
In the video, you will hear Freya’s awful meow and see how she reacted to getting a bath and blow dried. If you enjoyed this post, make sure that you subscribe so that you can be notified of future posts. Also, log into your YouTube so that you can subscribe to my channel and hit the like. Thanks so much.