How to take in a neglected cat

[moxiewild]

Piling on with everyone else.

Take photos of your life with him, in your house.

Find and save receipts for cat food, beds, toys, anything you can find (good excuse to pick up some special treats or toys for him right now too!).

Take him to the vet for a check up and to check for a microchip. Buy a pet carrier if you don’t already have one (save the receipt!), and if there’s no microchip, then get him chipped under your name.

If he is chipped, you might run into some problems. Hopefully they never registered it, but I highly doubt they would have kept up with registration and payments even if they did.

All of these things would establish reasonable precedence for ownership.

And yes... I would take him, without asking. Because he’s already yours and has been for a long time. He is dependent on you - not them.

They already abandoned him by not even attempting to look for him when they realized they no longer needed to buy cat food for months on end.

 

[moxiewild]

Also, if possible, move him to the new place before you start “noticeably” moving out.

If your neighbor suspects you’ve been caring for him and sees you moving, they may feel inclined to approach you about him, even if just with a simple “have you seen my cat?”

Don’t get caught with him in your house if they do this. Maintain plausible deniability so that they can’t confiscate or steal him.

Don’t feel morally conflicted about this. It’s in his best interest and like many of us have said - he already belongs to you at this point.