NWR Outside cat

allychase

So tomorrow or Tuesday this hurricane sandy will hit us. There's this super friendly outside cat that comes over to us every day and loves us petting him and giving belly rubs. I don't know if he's feral or not, his demeanor really doesn't seem like it, cause he's the nicest cat I've ever met. Anyway I'm worried about him being outside in this storm and I'm not sure if I should let him stay in the garage with some food and litter box until its over. My biggest concern is if he has fleas i don't want them coming in the house. Any ideas what I should do?

emeejeeayen

In my experience, fleas don't really live without an animal in the house, so if you don't have any other cats or dogs, etc, you shouldn't worry about having the cat in the garage in a few days. But I also don't want to be the reason you get a flea infestation, so maybe someone else more knowledgeable will chime in....

tonyadombrowski

Aww I love that your thinking of doing this, I so would do the same thing, I am def a cat peson. I would put the cat in the garage and just make sure thats where it wants to be, you dont want to scare it by feeling trapped. But sounds like you have it figured out and its very nice your doing this!

kmmssg

I would certainly offer him refuge in your garage.  Fleas need a food source.  Humans can be a food source if you get an infestation.  The garage is a good idea, but he may decide to adopt you in all of this...  Just saying

MoonlightSilver

Normally I'd say outside animals are used to weather, but this is supposed to be totally different from what we've seen in the past. 

Does the cat allow you to pick him up? Or follow you if you have food? I'm wondering how you could get him into the garage. Is there a risk of him getting hurt (tools with blades, you driving into the garage, etc)? If not, and you can get him in there, I'd say put him in. He might not pee/poop in the litter box though, so be prepared to clean up some messes. And give him water to drink.  

allychase

I really think he belonged to someone before. He follows us around, rubs against us, has never hissed or even swatted at me, and I have rubbed his belly and hind legs, which was a do not touch zone on my old cat. Whenever my brothers and sisters come over, they sit outside and play with him, and as rough as the kids can be he's great with them. We think he'd be a good inside cat but we took in a feral before and it was horrible. He can definitely manage in the garage, we moved in 10 months ago and have yet to put anything besides a wheelbarrow and some boxes in there so he'd be safe. I totally spaced and didn't buy flea medicine today. We're about to go find him and see how he reacts in there alone.

Avion22

I think the garage should be fine.

If you don't have a carrrier, then cut the top off of a carboard box and put some towels inside it.   Or, if you have a really large shoe box (like for boots), then that will work too.  Cats love boxes -- it makes them feel safe and secure.  

thejucheidea

I don't know if they make it for cats, but the one time our low rider (aka Freya the Corgi) brought fleas into the house, we gave them all this pill called Capstar that kills all fleas on the animal within an hour. It worked awesomely and covered the time between when we put Advantix on them and when that started working.

Are you inland enough that you don't have to worry about your garage flooding?