There's a cat that lives close to my boyfriend who is obviously not being looked after. Her hair is matted and as she's an incredibly long haired white cat, its really a problem. We've cut some of the mats off, but she's so covered it looks like she'll have to be shaved at some point.

We don't want people to think that its us mistreating her because we've had to cut quite a lot of fur off, but we can't afford to take her to the vets to get her properly seen to. I want to take her with me when we move, but I don't want to be accused of stealing, i just can't take seeing her being cruelly treated. Before we started feeding her it looked like she'd not been fed in a while.

Am I taking the right course of action, trying to do this myself or should I get the RSPCA involved. She's obviously being neglected but I don't think it counts as cruelty to the RSPCA and I'm sure they've got worse cases to be dealing with.

Do you know who the owners are? If so, maybe speak to them. I would tread carefully though as they may take offence. If not, maybe do some research to see if someone has lost the cat, if that comes to nothing and you feel you would give the cat a better life and you could look after it better then I don't see why you couldn't take her. That is providing you have totally checked out that she doesn't belong to someone!!! ; )

Good luck

xx

Sorry but please be very careful before you accuse her of being mistreated.

It makes me very angry, when our very longhaired cat was a lot younger, we used to groom her every day and every day she'd go back outside and get matted up again.

We had a welfare visitor come to our house telling us the PDSA would sort her matts out for free if we were 'too hard up' :mad:

Oh, we also had someone down the road make our cat quite ill by feeding her milk which she was intolerant too :rolleyes:

I appreciate that you're worried about the cat but there are sometimes underlying circumstances so perhaps it would be far more worthwhile to try and see the owners of the cat to check rather than calling in welfare services, sometimes no matter how hard you try, a young active cat will not stay the condition you try to keep it in.

However, I've not seen the state of this cat but just thought I'd try to add in a point of view you may not have thought about.

Take her with you & then take her to the PDSA

Take her with you & then take her to the PDSA

It's not her cat.

I'm sorry, but in my opinion, taking someone's cat without their permission because you think it may be neglected is wrong no matter how you dress it up.

It's not her cat.

I'm sorry, but in my opinion, taking someone's cat without their permission because you think it may be neglected is wrong no matter how you dress it up.


OK so get proof it's being neglected, then take it with you !!!!

Sorry but please be very careful before you accuse her of being mistreated.

It makes me very angry, when our very longhaired cat was a lot younger, we used to groom her every day and every day she'd go back outside and get matted up again.

We had a welfare visitor come to our house telling us the PDSA would sort her matts out for free if we were 'too hard up' :mad:

Oh, we also had someone down the road make our cat quite ill by feeding her milk which she was intolerant too :rolleyes:

I appreciate that you're worried about the cat but there are sometimes underlying circumstances so perhaps it would be far more worthwhile to try and see the owners of the cat to check rather than calling in welfare services, sometimes no matter how hard you try, a young active cat will not stay the condition you try to keep it in.

However, I've not seen the state of this cat but just thought I'd try to add in a point of view you may not have thought about.

I have to agree with you there Lotti, we were constantly being told our dog looked mistreated, she was groomed but she was old and her hair got matted so easily, she also had diabetes and generaly didn't look like a pedigree! If she had the life of a cat she could quite easily been taken in by someone and reported to RSPCA :mad: wrongly :mad:
Also if someone got their hands on Oz and started feeding him meat dog food he would get poorly, :mad: (it's too rich)
Try and find out whose it is, if they don't want it then take it with you. If i wears a collar maybe you could try attaching a message to it :huh:

If it is generally a neglected stray then you sound like you could offer it a lovely home.

we had this same issue in our previous house. The cat who lived a few doors down looked terrible and kept coming into our house. After speaking to one of the neighbours she assured me he was looked after and was fine and that the owner a few doors down and herself looked after it. She explained he was old and starting to struggle but had been checked out etc. I took her word for it and did see him being fed and kept checking on how he looked etc. and he seemed to get no worse. To be honest he was a scrounger and loved attention hence the coming into my house. I Did get advice of the Rspca and told them what had been said and they were happy all was well although never bothered to come and look etc.

I do get your point Lottie but you having a visit showed that other people were aware of your animals which i consider to be a good thing. All to often people ignore things and we are the first to complain about those who do not report neglect and abuse. As a society we should take notice of the animals around and not be afraid to question the conditon of an animal. If you have a valid reason/explanation then not a problem. If people do this it may just save another animal from suffering anymore.

sorry on my soap box a bit but feel quite strongly about this.:hihi:

This is why I asked.

I do understand that the owners may be trying to look after it, but on one side there's a solid mat of fur which stretches about 3 inches across and about 1 inch high that she contantly tries to pull at and loosen but can't and on the other there's one that;s even bigger. She's obviously iritated by these and her skin underneath is starting to go red raw where she's been pullin gat it.

If I could speak to her owners then I'd offer to pay to have her checked by the vet, but we've so far not been able to find anyone who'll admit to owning her. I've talked to quite a few of the neighbours who have said that they thought she was ours because she sits on our bin outside our kitchen door all day waiting for us to come home.

Do you think she may be a stray then? As no-one has admitted to owning her although i suppose some cats have large areas that they cover in their daily antics.

My Persian gets very matted and I cut it out but it takes a good while for them to get in a state as bad as you describe. Either it is a stray or the owners don't care about it and it will be suffereing.

I would definately catknapp the poor thing

I don't know to be honest. I don't think whoever's looking after her (if there is someone) is doing it properly, otherwise the next door neighbours wouldn't tell us she sits on our bin most of the day waiting for us to come home.

I'd much rather find out she belongs to someone and talk to them, obviously if she's someone's pet who can't look after her properly for whatever reason, I'd rather speak to them about it and offer to help rather than just steal her, but when we put her out at night, she sits and scratches at the door to be let back in (we can't keep her overnight cos of my other half's housemate) and it breaks my heart to think she's got no where to go.

Put up some posters, explaining that you are looking for the owner, take it to the vets, get it trimmed up (shaved) and take it with you when you move house. From the state of the matting it sounds like no-one is looking after the poor thing. :( if the neighbours don't even know whose it is then that's what I would do anyway. If it was a case of a few nots then that would be a different story but it really sounds like this cat has been neglected. It might have belonged to a neighbour that has died or something.

I may have read this thread through a bit too quick but.... has anybody recommended taking the cat to be scanned for a chip?

It isn't beyond the realms of possibility it's got out of its patch and is now lost ;)

I was thinking that when I was fussing her last night. I'm just gonna have to book a day off work I think and go down to the vets, whether or not she belongs to someone something needs to be done.

ring peak vets at woodseats and see if they would do it

they are open until 9pm :thumbsup:

:thumbsup: Thanks, I live near Woodseats so that's not too far away!!

Is it an old cat? sometimes when they are old or ill they tend to get a bit matted, it may not mean she is not being looked after, although really her owners should try to sort out the problem and not leave her, mats really hurt and pull.
The PDSA will not sort out mats on an animal you would have to pay a vet or groomer to shave the hair.

If she isnt wearing a collar you could put a cheap one one with a note on it wrapped in sellotape to keep it dry, saying 'does this cat belong to anyone - please contact ... (your telephone number)' or something similar...

If she isnt wearing a collar you could put a cheap one one with a note on it wrapped in sellotape to keep it dry, saying 'does this cat belong to anyone - please contact ... (your telephone number)' or something similar...

This is a good idea. I was going to suggest it too!

Well we've fopund that there's a free clinic to get her checked for microchips, de-flea'd (sp?) and generally checked out in Parson's Cross on thursday so we're gonna take her there and find out exactly what a vet reckons we should do, so hopefully we'll have ourselves a little more sorted than we were!!

collar on with your phone number, if they are genuine and looking after the cat, they will soon ring you.