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When we moved here last winter we found out our house came with a semi-feral cat. Hammy is sweet and actually very civilized, but he simply cannot stand to be in a house very long.
Well, it took a major snowstorm, but we finally got him to stay in the house for a full 24 hours!!!!! And you can bet he was pampered and spoiled rotten the whole time. I'm hoping he'll spend more and more time in the house now that he's had such a good experience.
We've managed to get him to come in at night, but by morning he gets so claustrophobic there's just no keeping him in the house... now maybe things are starting to change....
Our first cat was feral. We FORCED her to stay inside. (Who is the parent here? ) She is now 8 years old and still tries to sneak out.
I can't tell you how long it took her to stop with the hissing and spitting when we would try to pet her. She was a M E A N Y! Not so much anymore as long as we pet her on HER terms.
Hammy doesn't get mean, he just freaks out. And I mean he really freaks out. We think he might have claustrophobia. I have a feeling he's the kind of animal that would not hesitate to bite its own paw off to get out of a confined space. Poor thing--but hopefully he's starting to think of the house as a good place, not a giant cage.
Good job! We had a similar experience...a beautiful, fluffy black feral cat started hanging around my BF's parents' house a while back. Long story short, she was pregnant. I took her and the kittens into my guesthouse for the nursing period. This mama HATED being inside, and would meow pitifully every time I sabotaged her attempts at getting out. With the help of a local place called "friends of animals" I got the kittens adopted out and they also paid for half the cost to get the mama spayed...but told me it would be virtually impossible to find her a home. So Bf's parents said they would take her in...though they have never been cat people, they had gotten to like her and even named her Ebony before they found out about the whole kitten thing. Well, she would cry pathetically at the door when they brought her inside, but would stay in the front yard pretty much all the time. She still isn't an indoor cat, but after much kindness & cajoling, she now goes inside occasionally of her own accord, (esp. if it gets cold out!) and there isn't a mean bone in her whole body. I told them they should get a doggie door, that way she can come and go as she pleases, and maybe the mental state of knowing she isn't "trapped" will make her want to be inside all the more...who knows, it could work! Good luck and bless you for caring!
We have 2 ferals that found us here on the farm, Sandy and Shadow. With a lot of love and patience, we have been able to get them to let us pet them, and so on. I brought in groceries a couple of days ago,had all the screen doors and main door open, guess who invited themselves inside?
Congratulations to Normie and everyone else with their feral kitties.
Ours was the kitten of a pet cat whose owners deserted her.
She comes in every night, but does spend the day outside unless the weather is pretty nasty.
I got my feral cat to want to spend his life indoors accidentally. After his brother died on the road at age 3, I learned the hard way that this place was more dangerous than it looked so I wanted to keep the other guy safe. So I got the bright idea to put an invisible fence collar on him. One encounter with that and he never wanted to go out again. Problem solved, but ...
He is a loving cat but pretty much only to me. He still remembers his mother's teaching that all humans are dangerous, but experience with me tells him I'm an exception.
On the other hand, I've got this extra cat that obviously was never a feral and he is impossible to keep inside. when I do, he attacks the other cats. Blood is drawn so it is serious. I'm starting to wonder if the vet was right about him having been fixed, he's so aggressive???
Congrats! Every little success feels tremendous! And they are!
I have 3 ferals that we've rescued and have brought them indoors. They have their own area of the house where no one bothers them. We're in the process of building an indoor/outdoor enclosure for them. (Long story short, we rescued over 50+ cats at an apt. complex we used to live at (a few at a time... not all at once). When we moved... these 3 remained and I just couldn't leave them behind. I'd cared for them for 3 years. So they came with us when we moved.)
It took me 7 years to be able to pet one of them and the day I did was such a great day!
Of my nine, six are ex-ferals. Three of those probably don't count because even though their mother was a six or seven generation feral, she got sick when they were very small and abandoned them. When I found them, they were sick and starving. All they knew was me feeding and medicating them for a couple of months, so I am probably their mother. They are about seven months old now, are fully domesticated and don't have any of the feral instincts.
The other three are a couple of years old and are also fully domesticated, love to be petted, sit in our laps, and sleep with us at night. They were special ones from the colony that I used to feed.
Most of the ferals would stay their distance when I put out the food and didn't like me to try to touch them, but once in a while one would be friendly and even want to come inside the house. Their litter mates might be wild and timid, but when one them would not be afraid of humans he got to join the family.
Two of them, Frankie, and his sister Florie were like this. They were from a litter of five. The other three would run back under the fence into the bushes when they saw me, but Florie was brave and let me pick her up. In a couple of days she was living inside. I guess she told her brother Frankie that things were good in here and he got friendly and moved in. The other three stayed wild and never would let me get close.
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) She is now 8 years old and still tries to sneak out. 
