Starbird said:
Weird question I know, but maybe someone has had a similar experience.
A few days ago an old, fairly unhealthy looking cat started following me on one of my night walks. I was eating a piece of fried chicken and felt extremely sorry for the thing, so I gave it a little. It must have followed me home, and taken up residence in the vegetable patch just outside my front door, where it meows pitifully at me every time I come home/leave.
Sometimes I feel bad enough to give it table scraps, which may be a mistake - but it just looks so unhappy and hungry.
Now I live in a very small town in rural Japan. There are no animal shelters anywhere nearby. There are a lot of stray/feral cats in the town, so I cannot exactly give it away.
However I don't really want a mangy old cat for a pet (I don't really want a pet at all).
What would you do in my position? Keep feeding it? Stop feeding it and hope it goes away (and doesn't die waiting for food in my veggie garden)?
Well you've got a bit of a quandary there. Your ethics are conflicting with your means of living/personal limits.
If I may make a suggestion, pets aren't necessarily what you'd call "live in" creatures. A common misconception about pets is that they have to be part of your home, but there are a lot of creatures who we humans feed or otherwise support in some manner that don't need to be looked after full-time. Wild birds are a great example of this, as people regularly put out feeders for them. Technically that's a form of pet, as it's modifying the conduct of another creature within a certain context.
If you'd be willing to do, this stray cat could become such a pet. You don't need to give it a home, you just need to give it a chance. Really, all that comes down to is the occasional snack left out from time to time. It doesn't even necessarily have to cut into your budget, as even just some scraps of raw meat from your usual meals can help it immensely. Also, if the cat is looking a little rough around the edges you could do it a solid and give it some fish oil. Not only is the stuff good for people but it does wonders for a cat's fur and health in general. Not sure how much it costs in Japan, but in Canada a bottle of fish oil pills goes for about $20 or about 2000 Yen at the current currency exchange. A single bottle should last you most of the year if you give it to them once every two days.
An important thing to note is that if you do intend to support the stray cat, You're going to have to set up some ground work with it to ensure you're not suddenly supporting half of the neighbourhood's strays.
1) Don't leave food out all day. The longer the food remains out, the more likely some other creature will find out you're a source of food. So only bring out food at a certain time, say for example once you get back from work.
2) Form some sort of signal with it. The next few times the cat is around when you give it food, make some sort of distinctive noise when you give it some food. That way you've got an easy way to bring it around without attracting other animals, as it and only it will associate that sound with food.
3) Create a food box for it. Get a cardboard box and cut two connecting sides off, and put one of the the box's remaining sides up against up against a wall, with the other side facing out and away from the from the house. This not only gives the cat a specific place to come to, but will stop it from roaming around the outside of your house and block the view of the food you put out while still giving the cat the feeling of a way out, thereby decreasing the chances another stray will see the food or your stray waiting for food. Also, cats love boxes, so putting one out for it will make it feel safer and improve its behaviour when you're around.
That being said, if you really can't afford to support the cat long-term or are adamant about not having a pet, just stop feeding it. While it will spend a couple of days mewling at the door, it will eventually figure out that the proverbial well has run dry and move on, though those few begging attempts are going to hit you right in the feelings. However humans are creature of habit, so likely the cat has already found at least one other food source provided for by humans, so don't feel too bad about it.
Hope this helps. Situations like these are always tough on a person's empathy.
P.S. If you can afford it, I would recommend you try and getting it fixed once you've built up enough trust with it. Part of the reason why there are so many strays is that the population is largely unchecked, so decreasing their population will help the quality of life of the species immensely. Although I'm usually loathe to do it due to my personal belief of not wanting to end a creature's lineage, it's the most humane way to help the strays of the species.
. I don't want anything hairy that will dust up my apartment, so considering some sort of parrot...
