Barn cat forever or house-cat-to-be?

[hedgehog]

Poll question: Barn cat forever or house-cat-to-be?

Sid showed up last winter and we weren't certain for a while if he was living in our barn or with a neighbor. (see the book Six Dinner Sid to see where he got his name)

He's a big unneutered male with white fur and a large patch of gray tiger fur.

Well, we figured out that he's living in our barn or near-by. He comes up on to the front porch and meows until we go out and fill his food dish. Once he ignored his food dish and came up to me and demanded to be petted, arching his back and purring. He also spent the coldest weather sitting in our back shed which connects the pet door to the outside.

So the question is, will he stay in the barn or is he working his way into the house?

[DeepBlueC]

1. if he's training you & rewarding you with purrs...he's movin' in!

I'm looking forward to a happy conclusion to his patient campaign. :D

[hedgehog]

2. My husband insists he's a barn cat, but I maintain a true barn

cat won't allow itself to be petted.

[MrsMatt]

6. Actually, all of the barn cats we had when I was growing up

were tamed by me & my siblings, so they ALL loved to be petted. And petted. AND PETTED.

I now think of them as barn cats in transition to being house cats.

[ThomCat]

3. Congratulations on your new housecat.

:)

[Gormy Cuss]

8. Ditto.

The OP is owned.
:-)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. Take him to get neutered

[Critters2]

5. This is how my Leo did it. He was an alley cat,

who inched his way into my house...and my heart. That was 7 years ago.

[hedgehog]

9. Smokey and Murgatroid were both cats who came in from the cold.

Murgatroid was the fourth cat at the time, and we found ***** 3***** count 'em ******3 ****** different homes for him, but all the people brought him back. At the first two houses he proceeded to terrorize the other cats and a small poodle. At the third house, he actually spit up blood! He ended up staying with us for many years, but he must have been exposed to feline leukemia before he came to us. He tended to develop sinus infections, and toward the end it was pretty constant. Nothing like being awakened by a cat nuzzling your face when that cat's breath is AWFUL! I still miss him, though.

[libodem]

7. In the 60's when I was in grade-school

we had a big white, long-haired, intact tom, who adopted our family. Trouble was he was a sprayer. We couldn't let him in the house at all. Sometimes he would dash in, when we opened the door, and we would chase him through the house and out the back door. It still smelled like tom cat pee. I don't know how he stunk it up just running through but he did. He was nice enough to pet outside. And he must have been a cherished little white fur ball as a kitten. But by the time we got him he was a nasty old tom. His name was Old Fogy and he had to live outside. Make sure he's fixed and does not have any unbreakble bad habbits before you spoil him.

[DeepBlueC]

10. the two year old I just brought in

was an intact tom. He kind of transitioned into the inside over months, coming in to eat, then coming in to eat and sleep in the kitchen, nearest to the back door he used, then moving to establish beachheads deeper into the living space. He always left to run around the neighborhood every day even when the weather was totally forbidding; I exercised all the persuasive powers at my disposal to convince him to stick around at least until the skies settled but he had to do his thing. The spraying was definitely an issue. He had a route through the place and I followed him with a gallon and a half battery-powered pump spray jug of Nature's Miracle cleaning it all up. The urine of a tom cat definitely has the hormonal stench. It took me a few months to get the vaccines into him he needed before they would do the surgery, but the neutering resolved pretty much all of the issues I had with him. He stopped spraying; of course I had started to make my feelings known by shrieking every time I saw him at it. I wish I had done that right from the beginning rather than assuming it was inevitable. The negative reinforcement and the hormonal ebb together did the trick. The spraying tapered, then stopped. The roaming also tapered then stopped. And he is a real cuddle puss although, oddly, he was that way right from the start. I never expected that from an adult street tom cat. I am totally besotted with Mickey. We were each other's Christmas present.

[arcadian]

11. We said we would never let the barn kitty we were feeding come in the house.

That was a year ago. Guess where she is right now? On the bed in the spare bed room.

[Withywindle]

12. Have him fixed. If he forgives you, he's a house cat! n/t