Hard Decision to Make about a Feral Cat [View all]

[Liberalynn]

Actually I think I've made it but I still feel a tinge of guilt and reluctance about it.

There is an aggressive male feral cat on the property. He was here through the winter and didn't bother the others and seemed calm enough but he has become increasingly a bully since March.

I contacted the feral cat rescue group in my area, who has been slowly and surely helping me get the Ferals here spayed and neutered. The list is a long one because there is only one such group in our county and the Humane Society has made it clear they want to deal with cats as little as possible. They take relatively few and will tell you when you call they have their quota, and their mission is primarily dogs. So I still end up with kittens sometimes too.

The feral group got me an emergency appointment with one of the vets that is trying to help them out, and neutered the bully. We all hoped it would help with the aggression. They told me to wait two weeks for the hormones to settle and then if he was still brawling they would come and take him away.

Well last evening when I was feeding the one cat I can pet, I heard a pretty bad cat fight. just outside the milk house. I yelled and it stopped. When I got around the corner to see who was involved I saw one of the females clearly unruffled just looking around really curiously, and then slinking around the other corner comes the big bully looking quite satisfied with himself. I call him Uggo because of his nasty side.

While I didn't see the actual fight I suspect him of attacking one of the smaller males that sought shelter here last winter and keeps trying to move back in. I have seen the bully attack him twice before, with Uggo clearly the instigator, and it wasn't pretty. Though I managed to break it up, I felt sorry for the other cat I call Probie.

Also I saw Uggo drive off another male and the female that used to hang out with that male that were actually born here. He also tries to start fights with the two spayed females, and though I didn't see him do it, I suspect him of killing three kittens who were fathered by Probie. they matched his coloring. The spayed females won't even go in the barn anymore because they know Uggo hangs out in there. They choose the milk house with a leaky roof even when its pouring over being in the same place with Uggo.

The vet who neutered him told the Not For Profit lady who took him to the appointment that he could tell Uggo is a brawler because he had bites and claw marks all over him, some that were infected. He gave him an antibiotic.

I know for the other cats sake and for peace I need to contact the group and have them come and remove Uggo, but I know that will probably means curtains for him. It's just hard for me to not feel guilty that its an otherwise healthy cat that will end up probably being put down because really who else is going to want him and its like I am the one passing sentence. But its unfair to the other cats to have to live in terror of him all the time too and I don't see any other alternative. This sucks. Thanks for letting me vent.