SAD UPDATE >Biting my tongue (LAST POST)

[2DogsFarm]

Apologies for length, but backstory is needed.

Catlady friend has 2 house cats - male & female.
She lets them out in her back yard “supervised”.
Meaning she keeps an intermittent eye on them, but not constant & has several times had to retrieve the male from atop her fence, before he jumped into neighbors’ yard.
Last Spring she brought home a barncat she’d cared for (not her barn, not her cat) for several years after original barnowner moved & new owner permitted her to feed this cat & another.
She’d go to feed them twice a day & “overkill” describes her idea of caring for a barncat:
Buffet of canned & dry food, left out overnight in the tackroom she furnished for the cats.
Tackroom had a catdoor, not locked & she’d seen raccoons inside the barn, but insisted they didn’t enter the tackroom
She ran a heater overnight in Winter, along with tacking blankets up along the walls, fan & portable AC in summer.
When the other died from complications of FIV (that she’d had treated, paying for vet visits & meds) she brought the survivor - aged female - home.
It seemed to be going well, her 2 accepting the Newb.
Then somehow the new cat got out.
She was distraught, spent nearly a year posting flyers, visiting shelters, posting Missing Cat on local chatrooms, following up leads from those posts (never panned out), walking her neighborhood & then leaving food where a likely sighting had been reported.
She never put out a livetrap where she left food.
In the last several months the frantic search & self-recrimination has died down.
Meantime, I adopted from one of the shelters I’d visited with her.
Suggested she could do the same, but she “wasn’t ready”.
Then tonight she texts “Guess who has a new cat”
She says her male cat “found” this one - so in her yard.
Female guesstimated 1-2yo by her vet, only weighs 3.9# & is dehydrated. Also microchipped.
She’ll take cat - who she’s already named - back for more fluids tomorrow & said she doesn’t know how “the chip thing works”
I explained if the owner registered the chip they’ll be contacted.
I told her one so young & chipped may have got out, got lost & lost weight quickly, not being an outdoor cat.
Latest text says chip is from 2021 & vet thinks she’s been out around a month.
I said chip makes cat nearer 3 & owner might be missing her.
She replied she never saw any post about a missing cat.
Told her not everyone posts on SM.
Did not remind her she was searching well over a month…
My 2¢ says she doesn’t want to find an owner that to her mind abused/neglected this cat.

Thanks for reading, just had to vent that the shoe seems to be on the other foot

[Maythehorsebewithme]

I don’t know how the chip thing works either. Does the vet report the chip # to a sort of clearing house that contacts the owner (assuming the owner registered the chip)? Can the owner then contact the cat lady directly?

[Larksmom]

when I adopted my third current cat, she had been living with the ferals for about two years. She was with a colony by my sister’s house. She let me pick her up immediately, so I whisked her off to the vets. She was spayed, and chipped! She had belonged to the people that lived across the street from my sister, but they had died and the new people just threw her out. So that chip was transfered to me.

[Annie10]

If there is a chip and the vet scans it then the vet should call the chip company and let them know there’s a found cat.

[CindyB59]

We had a neighbor like that. She decided one of my barn cats was a stray. When we were moving out of state, with no way to care for 2 semi-feral cats, I found a new home for them.

She asked if I’d seen her black and white cat, no I hadn’t. Came over several times until it became clear she was talking about my Pearl. I told her I’d re-homed them. She insisted I bring her (not her sister) back. I was firm with my No.

Her hubby came over screaming and cussing that we had no right, and to get the cat back.

Next was a sheriff knocking on our door at 11 PM. Explained the whole scenario, showed pictures from 3 months and up, explained they were chipped in my name with the h/s as secondary - so they left. Then she called the humane society on us, who verified we had done nothing wrong. And they always will keep bonded cats together.

It was crazy. SHE was crazy

[2DogsFarm]

Last text said she thinks her missing cat “sent” this one to her {rollyeyes}
I said look at it this way:
IF sent it was because:
A)she can get cat back to her home
B)she can give cat a new home
She seemed satisfied with that idea.

Next chapter tomorrow, after she takes cat back to the vet.

@CindyB59 Hoping this doesn’t morph into a similar situation
Friend can be a little nutz where cats are concerned.

[trubandloki]

It seems like the best way to explain this situation to your friend is to ask her how she would feel if her missing cat was kept by someone who refused to return it to her because the missing cat looked less than perfect when they found it?

I hate people who ignore the chip.

Reach out to the owners. You might find they are the slime you (your friend really) have decided they are and you can keep the cat.
You might also find that they have been looking for their cat all this time and will be overjoyed to know that the cat is safe.

[Foxglove]

Sympathies extended. No answers. I have a friend who keeps her barn cats in her tack room with a space heater in the winter. No litter box, because, according to her, “They don’t do anything in there.” Yeah, they do. The smell of cat pee is a solid force when one opens the door. Her tack all reeks. I am sure she thinks it “normal barn smell,” but it isn’t. I never go to her place in the summer.

[GraceLikeRain]

I wonder if it would be helpful to remind her (gently) of how hard she searched for barn cat. If he was microchipped but ended up miles away, how would she feel if someone assumed he was dumped/neglected and never even bothered to call her?

I do agree it’s a tough call though. When you see a rough looking cat there’s always the fear that someone is just a shit owner. You call and get a shrug “oh ya. She’s a wanderer” and then you are tasked with returning a cat to a bad situation.

Personally, I’ve grappled with it. Several times I returned cats who looked rough to homes that seemed apathetic and I’d wished I’d just kept my mouth shut and found them a new zip code.

Another option is take cat to animal control and make it very clear she wants her after the stray hold. If the owners are looking, the cat is being posted and is accessible for that period of time.

[2DogsFarm]

Thanks, All.

@trubandloki See my last post.
I’m already hinting she should consider this cat as “lost” as hers was.

@GraceLikeRain I’m not in control of where the foundling will end up.
I’ve already suggested the chip could be the current owner & maybe today her vet will contact whoever the chip identified.
Also pointed out a month is long enough for a housekept cat to lose weight & look ill-kept.

@Foxglove Eeeewww!
If anything, she was overzealous maintaining that tackroom
There were multiple litterboxes, cleaned daily, hay in the loft all winter & IME, my barncat preferred holing up between bales to the fleece house w/heatlamp & HotHands packet I provided.
Told her, but Oh, No!
Her cats needed a heated room & 24/7 buffet.
No skin off my , but it made me go WTF?

I’ll update after I hear how today’s vet trip went.

[Pep_n_Ann]

The chips that my pets have pull up my name and number when scanned

[2DogsFarm]

Final Update:
Cat is 3 & neutered male - now named Mac.
Chipowners relinquished to her.
So now I’ll have to.hear how MIA cat sent this one to her
Oh well, Happy Ending for everyone
Mac:

[2DogsFarm]

Friend just texted from the Emergency vet
Mac is in liver/kidney failure.
She said she’ll bring him back tomorrow to euth.
I asked why not today?
Sorry, but I don’t see any reason to prolong his discomfort another 24h

[CindyB59]

Poor old guy. At least he was loved, even if for a very short time.

[2DogsFarm]

Actually, poor young guy
Chip showed he was just 3

[Alex_and_Bodie_s_Mom]

I thought he looked like hell. I was just hoping he was dehydrated/sick from being away from home for so long.

Original owners probably dumped him and that’s why they didn’t want him back.

Poor guy. I can’t imagine why she didn’t go ahead and euth him today, though.

[2DogsFarm]

Her reply to Why not today?
She wants him cremated.
WhutTheEFF!
So cat suffers another 12+hrs so she can spend $100(or more) for ashes?
From a cat she had less than a week?

Maybe it’s just me, but when I had to euth the 17yo cat I’d had since she was a kitten, vet offered a group cremation for owners who did not want the body returned, then burial in a pet cemetary. I was glad to take this option.

Honestly, what’s the point of ashes (says the widow with 50% of DH’s)?
I have friends with multiple containers of past pets. Some childless.
Is this anything they think their heirs want?

[Alex_and_Bodie_s_Mom]

She couldn’t have the emergency vet put him in the freezer overnight? (I know it’s horrible to be that blunt, but seriously.) Or bury him at home?

You just don’t make an animal suffer because something is inconvenient.

[trubandloki]

Vets must be different where you are. Around here they offer cremation (clearly not the vet, an outside company that comes and picks up the bodies). You even fill out all the paperwork right there at the vet. Vet safely tucks the body away (in their freezer) until the cremation company picks up the body.

[2DogsFarm]

I don’t think it was convenience in her case.
My best guess is just wanting to keep Mac with her.
Makes zero sense to me, but not my choice.

@trubandloki See my post above.
My vet offered exactly what you described & I was glad of it.
Same for the emergency vet I had to take my endstage FIC Cheeto to last July.
Maybe the emergency vet she used doesn’t have that connection?
Though you’d think the emergent nature of most clients would make it necessary.