The Vacancy Sign was Left On!

I have a feral cat living under my storage shed it he looked terrible his face wounded from fighting tail had very little hair . He is a tom it took about 5 months of feeding him and he came out and walked close to me but darted away as soon as i moved.

It's about a year later and now he is on my back patio every morning and every night he only allows me to touch him. But that's only part of the story as I recently found him laying by a possum. I mean inches from each other .

Tonight I watched the possum eat out of his bowl with him laying right there. Is this normal?

Tim

ANS:An interesting story. There are lots of instances of animals of different species getting along or ignoring each other. My three legged cat gets very near to foxes and the fox more or less ignores him.

Are you sure this is a possum? According to Wikipedia possums are native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi (and introduced to New Zealand and China). No mention of USA. You are in Alabama, USA, aren't you?

On the basis that it is a possum, it gets the benefit of the cat food. The cat, in this instance, probably doesn't have a positive or negative reaction to the possum's presence.

You can get symbiotic relationships developing between animals of different species. This is where both animals benefit from the relationship.

So lovely to hear about your kitties and even better to hear you have homes for them!

So hard at the moment trying to find homes for Kitties in the UK, the shelters are full to overflowing, just a couple of hours earlier my friend collected a beautiful little girl kitten that had been abandoned on a car park near me (my vets rang as she'd been left there and asked if I could help). She's been lucky because she's going to live with 2 little dogs and another cat so she wont be short of company.

I too suspect that your vacancy sign will stay put!

MY two sons were just saying the same thing about me. That there was a rumor going around the neighborhood that the white house always has a nice dish of food outside and that they are suckers for a pitiful meow.

Knowing you, that 'no vacancies' sign will never be hung up !
People certainly know where to dump their pregnant cats and you are an Earth Angel for taking them all in, caring for them and finding good homes.

your story had touched my heart very much you must love cats and loving to care for them and get treatments for your cats it really had touched my heart a lot of people would just ignore the poor cats and kittens and walk past them but you helped and cared for them and took the cats into your home to love them and do anything for them we need more people like you in this world you have a heart of love for animals and you are a very good soul i am so like you i love animals too they mean the entire world to me too to bad i live in an apartment because i would love to have more than just one cat but the cat i am blessed with wouldn't like it at all she suffered alot with her first owner god bless people like you!

What happens is that it gets around the cat community that there is excellent cat hotel down the street.

And then one of them sneaks up at night and turns the sign over, that is in the front window, from "No Vacancies" to "Vacancies - Enquire Within"

And voila!

Thanks for coming back Jan to share and update, and for being a great friend to the vulnerable feral cat.