How to find out if a cat is a stray

My sister found a stray cat in our garage after school one day. No wait a minute, I've got that wrong, a stray cat found us one day. We were asking our parents for a new pet when a stray cat literally walked into our lives.

She became my best friend for about sixteen years, until she died from cancer. Our cat had been a stray, and I've always felt that it is very easy to identify a stray cat. A stray cat will be hungry, and may hide in the nearby bushes or meow at you to feed her. A stray can be very friendly because she is a pre-owned model. In other words, she may come running out of the bushes to meow at you as you walk to your backdoor, talking to your kids.

Or a stray may be scared, and shivering next to your backdoor, asking for the food she smells from inside your home. One method to tell if a cat is a stray or not is to check to see if she is wearing a collar that has any identification. A stray may or may not have i.d tags on her collar. Some people try to get rid of their cat when times are tough, by taking off the cat's collar, and letting the cat go into a nearby field, or out in the country.

When a cat doesn't have any identification tags, she still may have had a previous owner. Today animals are being outfitted with a global positioning device, (g.p.s.). You can take a stray to a nearby SPCA or an animal shelter to have them help you find the cat's owner. The shelter may be able to run a device over the cat to see if it has a g.p.s. chip in it, identifying the owner.

You can also identify whether a cat is a stray or not, by how the cat acts. Sometimes, the cat is a feral cat. That means that this cat will have been born in a wild situation, and is a wild cat. Feral cats, usually are skittish to humans, and can be very nasty. This is a cat that is not a stray, and has been living in a non-domesticated situation for it's entire life.

When you find a stray, ask neighbors if they lost a cat recently, and put up posters in your local area. If the cat does not have any identification, or a g.p.s. chip, you may have a new friend that can easily become part of your family. Copyright 2012, (c).