Toronto Cat Rescue receives many inquiries each week from caring individuals who are hoping to help the stray cats or kittens in their neighbourhood. We have created the Stray Rescue Program to help you find homes for healthy, social, adoptable stray cats and kittens. As part of this program, TCR volunteers will provide information and guidance on how you can trap and sterilize stray cats in your neighbourhood.
Unfortunately, Toronto Cat Rescue can NOT help with trapping stray cats and/or provide foster homes for stray cats, as we just do not have enough foster homes or volunteer resources.
Toronto Cat Rescue Stray Rescue Program allows you the use of our volunteers and our website to assist you in your efforts to find a new home for the cats you are caring for. The cats or kittens stay with you in your home, and once they have been spayed/neutered and vaccinated they will be posted on our website and affiliated websites (ie. PetFinder.com and Adopt-A-Pet). Toronto Cat Rescue adoption coordinators will recommend your cat(s) to suitable potential adopters.
For more information or to apply for this program please email tcr.surrender@gmail.com. Due to the high volume of inquiries, phone messages will not be returned. You will be asked to complete the TCR Stray Rescue Application 2012 and email it to TCR. Thank you for taking the time to find these cats a new, safe, forever home. We will do all that we can to assist you.
Hello, I found a stray female cat about a year old. Been staying in our house. But I’m unable to keep her.
Do not want to call animal services wondering if you’d be ably to help
Please complete our Stray Rescue Application and email it to TCR: please email tcr.surrender@gmail.com, then a volunteer will contact you shortly.
Please contact Toronto Humane Society immediately and arranged to have her spayed. Also, shots. It is $80.00 plus tax, so about $90.00. You can also have her microchipped free of charge, but you must request this. Otherwise, she won’t be microchipped. (And you have to register the microchip, but that is free of charge. You have to register it online.)
Then after she is spayed, you really should keep her unless you have a bird. That’s the best situation. Otherwise, you can surrender her to Toronto Humane Society as a custodial surrender. This means you are not the actual owner but that you are looking after her. You have to have proof that you are looking after her – so keep all your receipts. Be sure to keep any receipts for pet food, litter, spaying, shots, and so on.
If she is already spayed, you can take her to Brimley-Lawrence vet clinic, or other clinics that don’t charge much just for shots. Again, keep all the receipts to prove you are looking after her.
If you surrender her to Toronto Humane Society, then will find a home for her. There is a difference between strays and cats being looked after. THS does not have a license to take in strays, so they must be turned over to Animal Control. However, if you have proof that you are looking after her, then you can do the custodial surrender.
I always recommend that people try to keep cats that come along, unless they have birds.
Good luck,
Candice
I have also found some stray cats homes through putting signs in Pet Valu, along with a photo and description. Try putting up signs in a few Pet Valus. But get her spayed, before there are kittens.
If he lets you pet him, he isn’t feral just skittish. You might be able to get him to go into a cat carrier (the kind that open from the side, not that open from the top). You need to put the food into the cat carrier, then when he goes inside, you need to shut the door of the cat carrier. Shut the door really tightly. Then he needs to be neutered (or spayed, do you know for sure that he is male?). He can’t eat for about 12 hours before the surgery. You can take him to Toronto Humane Society, which has experience with feral and semi-feral cats. The charge is $60.00 and then $20.00 if you also want rabies and FVCRP vaccines, which is recommended. It’s $90 with the tax if you do both the neutering/spaying and the vaccines.
If he won’t go into a cat carrier, then you will need a humane trap. As for finding him a home, yes, there is a lot of hope for him. I have taken in 3 cats who were abandoned and now have 5 cats. One had been semi-feral. She is now extremely affectionate and best friends with one of our other cats.
Could you trap him before the winter, get him neutered (or if she, spayed) and just feed outside until you find a home? No, I do not recommend just releasing him into the wild – he isn’t feral if he lets you pet him. A home will come along. I know because I have rescued enough cats. Also, when you have him neutered, make sure they cut his nails (there is no charge for this). His nails will be long and he might scratch you, even just in play.
The worst-case scenario is that you can surrender him to the Toronto Humane Society. They will litter-train him and find him a home. They won’t put him down. However, to do this, you must have proof that you are looking after him and feeding him. This is called a custodial surrender. So be very careful that when he is neutered and/or vaccinated, that the receipt is in your name rather than in a rescue organization’s name.
Good luck.
Many thanks for your very detailed and extremely useful reply. This gives us a clear and doable plan of action with good hopes for a better future for him (we do know he’s a male). Yesterday, by the way, I petted him for a long time, scratched under his chin etc. and he was loving every second of it, so that’s very good too. Anyway, thanks very much again (also from Graymalkin (as we’ve started to call him))!
Update: we took him in, brought him to the vet or a medical check-up flea treatment, vaccinations, to have him neutered, microchipped and tested for various diseases. The good news is that the neutering procedure went well, that GrayMalkin [his name] seems to be healthy and in good shape, that he’s free of fleas, that he’s friendly, that he seems to be about 2 or 3 years old, and that, as the vet confirmed, he is indeed a beautiful cat (he looks a lot like a Blue Russian, except that his soulful eyes are green/yellow rather than pure green.
The bad news, however, is that he tested positive for FIV. He is not showing any signs of illness, and we realize that FIV+ cats may live long and relatively healthy lives. The problem is that we have 2 cats of our own who have tested negative for FIV (as well as for other diseases). We learned that there is disagreement about whether it is safe to introduce a FIV+ cat into a stable household with FIV- cats. We decided we don’t want to take that risk, so now we are trying to find him a home where he will be loved and cared for.
If anybody reading this knows somebody who would like to adopt a beautiful Russian Blue-esque cat with soulful eyes, please let us know.
Hi Conrad – You can use our owner/surrender program to help the little fellow find a new home – http://torontocatrescue.ca/help-for-cats/owner-surrender/.
For some more info on FIV (TCR believes FIV and non-FIV cats can live happily together): http://torontocatrescue.ca/2011/03/07/feline-immunodeficiency-virus-fiv/
update #2: He’s found a loving home! and from what we hear, after about a week of hiding, he now seems to have settled in quite nicely and seems to be quite happy and confident.
That is wonderful news!!
we’ve been feeding a stray/feral cat (Russian blue) in our backyard for some time now. He is a bit skittish but allows us to pet him when he’s eating. He’s well fed now and seems to be doing quite well. We think he’s about 3 years old, but that’s admittedly a rough guess.
For various reasons we don’t have any interest in taking him in ourselves, but we’d be more than happy to trap him, hand him off to a volunteer and provide the funds to have him checked out, neutered, and provided a home.
I’ve been doing some research but I can’t seem to find an organization that does exactly that. Most organizations try to find a home for cats who are already well socialized or who are young enough to be socialized, or they trap feral cats and neuter / spay them and return them. While those are of course excellent things to do, we hope there are also organizations that can take care of a cat who has not been socialized (but is potentially socializable still) but is not really feral either, and find him a home. Or is the only hope trapping and neutering him and then returning him?
Thanks for any information you might be able to provide us with.
I have 3 abandon cats that my sister abandon in her apartment with no home to go to. I cannot take them for I have 2 cats and a dog and I don’t know anyone who would take the three cats. She left the cats and everything she owns in her apartment. I don’t know where she is. I have her next door neighbor with the super-in-tendent go in and feed them and change the kitty-litter, if anyone could help, it would be a miracle. Call me Laura
(416)577-1744 Toronto area (downtown)
I have a male cat that is living on my porch for the last week. I have 4 dogs and a very allergic daughter so we can not keep him. He is between 1-2 years old. He is very friendly around people and dogs. I am trying to find a loving home. If anyone wants to rescue this beautiful creature please let me know. I live in Toronto.
Hi, my family has rescued a mother cat who is about 1yrs old along with her 3 babies. We have been able to find homes for 2 of the 3 which leaves the mommy and 1 baby. The kitten that is left is a black female who is about 7 weeks old who is so full of energy and personality. We have taken them in and are feeding and providing them a safe environment for the time being but we need to find them forever homes. We believe that the mother cat did belong to someone on the street but they are now denying that she is their’s so instead of seeing her die of hunger we decided to do what we could for her.
this is a very frustrating situation because every single organization that we have reached out to is not very helpful at all. They either come back with stop feeding them and they will go away or you can give us $200.00 and we will put them down. I have to stay that I am very disappointment with the responses from these people and have to question why they are doing what they do. All we are trying to do is find homes for these cute cats and make sure that the homes they go to are safe ones.
if anybody can please offer any help or advise please let me know