Care giving of free-range community cats begins with ensuring all the basic necessities:
Necessities of Caregiving
Food,
and TNVR.
Some people might disagree with me, and are welcome to do so in the comments section, and you might be right, but, in addition to food and shelter, I consider TNVR as very necessary. Without TNVR, communities of cats can quickly breed out of control. If this happens, there’s a good chance coyotes and other predatory animals will move into your neighborhood.
Fortunately, in addition to many individuals and groups, some local, city, and county governments across the country are recognizing the need and great benefits for supporting TNVR programs.
Socialization and Domestication Optional
Community cats are almost always socialized to a degree, but might only be socialized within their own community of cats. To get a feral cat or kitten to be socialized with humans, or just one human, you, is sometimes a whole lot more difficult than “the basic necessities”. From their feline perspective, socializing with humans is totally optional. They might be friendly, and might even like you, but still keep their distance and run from you. They might come close enough for you to try to pat them, then scoot away quickly. If you love animals, have tremendous patience, and can handle kitty rejection, you may have what it takes to be a great prospective caregiver!
Myth: Feral cats have feral kittens. It’s in their blood.
Reality: Feral is a behavioral descriptive. Feral is NOT a genetic trait.
Myth: Feral cats are born to be wild, mean, and nasty.
Reality: Many so-called “FERAL” outdoor community cats are not inherently any less friendly or social than their counterparts who are indoors domestic pets. Heck! There are plenty of so-called domesticated indoors cats that are far less friendly and far less socialized than any of the undomesticated outdoors so-called “feral” community kitties here at the Feral Project. I’ve seen those tv shows which have desperate humans thinking their hissing, scratching, biting pets are in such a bad frame of mind they have to call on cat psychologists, and rightly so. Their behavior is much more “feral” than sweethearts like Princess.
Once socialized to humans, some cats might even become domesticated to live the comfy life of an indoors cat eventually. Again, like socializing, cats who have lived their entire life outdoors don’t know about having a nice indoors life. They consider domestication to be optional. Domesticating an outdoors cat requires patience, with older kitties being much more difficult than kittens that are 5 to 12 weeks old.
As a community cats caregiver, try as you will to give every kitty the perfect life they deserve there are some realities of life you just have to accept.