FOUND: Brown tabby
I found an extremely friendly but very undernourished brown tabby cat yesterday in Lynn near Swampscott. He's long furred and colored exactly like a Maine Coon. He's very small and does not appear to be fixed. My inexpert opinion is that he is still a kitten, although close to reaching maturity.
He had no collar, but is much too trusting and friendly to be anything but someone's lost pet. Given how skinny he is, I imagine he's been lost for a period of at least a few weeks. Please contact me if you think this might be your lost cat.
The above is a copy of the ad I just put up at Craigslist.org. I've also been calling local shelters to see if anybody's looking for this guy.
When I say this cat is friendly I cannot stress that enough. I could barely walk this morning for him twining in and out of my legs. He's a real sweetie, if somewhat mangy looking. He's missing a lot of the fur on his tail, and keeps pulling more fur off of his sides, back and butt. The tail I would guess is from undernourishment, fighting and whatever else a homeless cat has to contend with. The rest of it comes out in tufts while he's grooming himself. Lick, lick, lick, tug, flap jaw until mouth is mostly fur free, lick, lick... I combed his fur fairly thoroughly and this behavior seems to have mostly stopped. As far as I can tell it's unshed winter undercoat, although I'm watching him closely for new bald spots.
He's also limping slightly, favoring his front right paw. It's worst when he first stands up after being still for a while and then goes almost entirely away once he's been walking on it for a bit. I've felt and compared both his front legs and paws, and they seem to be the same. He doesn't meow or try to pull away or anything when I apply light pressure to the apparently injured paw/leg, so I'm hoping it's something minor.
He doesn't appear to have fleas (either that I can see, or indicated by excessive scratching), and he's been eating and drinking with no problems. He ate a lot yesterday, so I was a little worried he might make himself sick, but he seems to be fine. Poor little guy was just hungry, I guess. The litter box is stinky in a way that assures me he's urinating and defecating in a healthy way.
I'm not overly hopeful of finding his original owners, since he does seem to have been on the streets for some time. If I haven't found them by next week, I'm going to see about taking him to the ARL Spay Wagon. It's only $55-80 (depending on the animal and gender) for all this: physical exam, spay (females) or neuter (males) , rabies vaccine, distemper vaccine, test for feline Leukemia and feline AIDS (cats) or Heartworm test (dogs) and a microchip. As a male cat he'd only cost $55 plus the cost of any medicine/treatments they proscribe.
It's a great deal, but I'm broke and unemployed, so if anyone feels like contributing to the Make-This-Kitty-Healthy Fund, I'd very much appreciate it. On the off chance I managed to collect more than I'd need to care for him, the excess would be donated to the Spay Wagon, which can only work for so cheap because of donations.
I'm not planning on keeping him (baronmind gave me two weeks before I stopped pretending he wasn't my new pet), but it may take some time to find him a new home, and I want to make sure he's healthy. Besides which, I'm sure it will be easier to find a home for a cat who has been fixed, vaccinated and micro-chipped than for one that's not.
Advise and help from all you animal lovers (and especially from you, lowercase_e) would be much appreciated.
[edit: 2:28pm] drownedmagenta very sagely suggested that, to make donating to the Make-This-Kitty-Healthy Fund easier (especially for those of you who are far away), I set up a PayPal donation thingy. So here you go.
If you'd like to help me take care of this cat, and find him a good home, I would very, very much appreciate it.
[edit: 10:08pm] Thank you all for your generous donations. Thanks to all of you I now have enough to take him to the Spay Wagon, and even a little extra, in case he needs any medicine or additional treatment.
He had no collar, but is much too trusting and friendly to be anything but someone's lost pet. Given how skinny he is, I imagine he's been lost for a period of at least a few weeks. Please contact me if you think this might be your lost cat.
The above is a copy of the ad I just put up at Craigslist.org. I've also been calling local shelters to see if anybody's looking for this guy.
When I say this cat is friendly I cannot stress that enough. I could barely walk this morning for him twining in and out of my legs. He's a real sweetie, if somewhat mangy looking. He's missing a lot of the fur on his tail, and keeps pulling more fur off of his sides, back and butt. The tail I would guess is from undernourishment, fighting and whatever else a homeless cat has to contend with. The rest of it comes out in tufts while he's grooming himself. Lick, lick, lick, tug, flap jaw until mouth is mostly fur free, lick, lick... I combed his fur fairly thoroughly and this behavior seems to have mostly stopped. As far as I can tell it's unshed winter undercoat, although I'm watching him closely for new bald spots.
He's also limping slightly, favoring his front right paw. It's worst when he first stands up after being still for a while and then goes almost entirely away once he's been walking on it for a bit. I've felt and compared both his front legs and paws, and they seem to be the same. He doesn't meow or try to pull away or anything when I apply light pressure to the apparently injured paw/leg, so I'm hoping it's something minor.
He doesn't appear to have fleas (either that I can see, or indicated by excessive scratching), and he's been eating and drinking with no problems. He ate a lot yesterday, so I was a little worried he might make himself sick, but he seems to be fine. Poor little guy was just hungry, I guess. The litter box is stinky in a way that assures me he's urinating and defecating in a healthy way.
I'm not overly hopeful of finding his original owners, since he does seem to have been on the streets for some time. If I haven't found them by next week, I'm going to see about taking him to the ARL Spay Wagon. It's only $55-80 (depending on the animal and gender) for all this: physical exam, spay (females) or neuter (males) , rabies vaccine, distemper vaccine, test for feline Leukemia and feline AIDS (cats) or Heartworm test (dogs) and a microchip. As a male cat he'd only cost $55 plus the cost of any medicine/treatments they proscribe.
It's a great deal, but I'm broke and unemployed, so if anyone feels like contributing to the Make-This-Kitty-Healthy Fund, I'd very much appreciate it. On the off chance I managed to collect more than I'd need to care for him, the excess would be donated to the Spay Wagon, which can only work for so cheap because of donations.
I'm not planning on keeping him (baronmind gave me two weeks before I stopped pretending he wasn't my new pet), but it may take some time to find him a new home, and I want to make sure he's healthy. Besides which, I'm sure it will be easier to find a home for a cat who has been fixed, vaccinated and micro-chipped than for one that's not.
Advise and help from all you animal lovers (and especially from you, lowercase_e) would be much appreciated.
[edit: 2:28pm] drownedmagenta very sagely suggested that, to make donating to the Make-This-Kitty-Healthy Fund easier (especially for those of you who are far away), I set up a PayPal donation thingy. So here you go.
If you'd like to help me take care of this cat, and find him a good home, I would very, very much appreciate it.
[edit: 10:08pm] Thank you all for your generous donations. Thanks to all of you I now have enough to take him to the Spay Wagon, and even a little extra, in case he needs any medicine or additional treatment.