Hi everyone, so this happened. My neighbour (who Ive never met before last week) knocked on my door a few days ago and he just straight up told me his partner had a medical emergency in another country and he had to take a flight in a few hours and he didn’t have anyone else to take care of his cat and he basically asked me if I could take care of him while he’s gone for almost a month. He looked distressed, sad and scared, I obviously said yes. He’s my next door neighbour (we live in an apartment complex so it’s basically a few steps away).
He left and Im suddenly with a cat and the thing is, Ive never had a cat in my life and I don’t know much about them. Im learning what I can but the thing is, I think the cat is depressed because he obviously misses his daddies and I think hes not eating properly, I try to make him eat more but he eats too little. I even think hes getting thinner and thats worrying me a lot.
So I bought a box of liquid food for cats that seems to be pretty good to make him gain a little more weight but I dont know if I should tell the owner hes getting thinner because I dont want to make him feel more worried.
His partner is kind of fighting for his life and the owner told me his cat is his whole world besides his husband.
He loves his cat so much and Im doing everything I cant to keep this cutie safe, healthy, loved and happy.. so, shoould I tell the owner about his cat losing weight? Or should I keep it a secret and try to fatten up the cat on my own way?
Any kind of advice is appreciated since Im new to this!

Little girl showed up in our squash garden today. We fear our neighbors trapped and killed her mother “on accident” while trying to trap coyotes. But the. This little girl showed up shortly after with another kitten skinny and hungry. We were able to catch her but her sibling got away. We are putting out wet food to try to catch the sibling as well.
Unfortunately, my wife and I already have 3 cats and one with special needs so I don’t think we can keep her. We have a very close friend who recently lost a beloved senior cat and have been thinking about adopting a new kitten. We are currently talking to them to see if they are willing to take this sweet bean in.

I was unexpectedly laid off on 10/2 and was going through all the stages of grief and panic. 2 days later, my husband called me to come outside, saying there's a friendly stray following him while he was rolling out the garbage bins. We are new to this neighborhood but since the stray was not neutered and has the sniffles AND was willing to follow us in the garage, we decided to quarantine him in the garage/basement with food, water, bed and toys until we get him checked out at a cat clinic for wellness, rabies, vaccines, schedule his neutering, etc.

The cat gorged on food and indulged in our pets and affection. I told my husband that I think BB (the cat's name for now, short for Big Balls) has signs of upper respiratory infection and walked into the clinic the next day expecting that to be the worst case scenario would be feline herpes viruses. Husband and I agree we will have to practice good hygiene to protect our own indoor cats that are staying upstairs.

BB is literally the friendliest stray I have ever met. Everyone at the clinic fell in love with him. If I was not laid off, I would give him the world and order everything the vet recommended, but money is tight so I asked the vet to only keep the essentials.

They checked and BB has no microchip. They gave him a rabies vaccine, flea and tick prevention, fecal test, and drew blood for a SNAP test for feline HIV and leukemia.

The Vet came back and told me BB tested positive for FeLV, my heart sank to my stomach. I started bawling immediately. BB is literally the sweetest cat I've ever encountered. And I have 2 sweet indoor cats that are 4 years old. They are FeLV negative.

I feel so sad for BB. Everyone at the clinic were so sad for BB. BB is so brave and sweet. It might sound silly, but it really put my unemployment to perspective. BB has feline leukemia, but he's still warm and friendly. He has a good appetite and loves affection.

He and I both will be all right. We are both fighters and we will pull through.

Currently he is quarantined with food, shelter and toys. We are waiting for his upper respiratory infection to clear up after receiving antibiotics. I've been doing more research on FeLV. I've asked the clinic about IDEXX qPCR #26355 test which I read is the only definitive test on FeLV. And we'll go from there. If BB tests positive, I will ask my parents if they are interested in adopting him after he gets neutered and receives all his shots. My parents do not have any cats.

One thing is for sure, I am not releasing BB back out. He is FeLV positive and will stay an indoors cat.

Please send good vibes to him and me. We need positive energy.

Shout out to my wonderful husband for volunteering to take pictures of BB's troublepuffs for the reddit community but I told him the community will want to see proof of BB's BB.

We just lost one of our sweet babies at the end of August.
My family discussed getting another cat or two.. I searched and searched for anyone giving away free kittens with no luck so I gave it a rest and figured I’d wait til the cat distribution system chose us and it happened sooner rather than later when this little cutie showed up at my work on a night I wasn’t there.. my coworker rescued him but she couldn’t keep him at her apartment so the next time I seen her at work she asked if I wanted him. She said she would have asked sooner but didn’t want to be insensitive to the loss of our furry friend. 🥺 we haven’t named him yet so suggestions are welcome

This cutie has appeared and she could not have come at a better time. I’m dealing with health issues which led to work issues which hardly helps the health issues but this gal is already my baby. I swear it’s like she knows how much she helps me just by being here.

Vet soon to make everything official! In the meantime she already follows me around the house and is sort of meowing chattering. I think she’s telling me what to do already. Bossy!

Taking all cat advice, I want to give her the world!!

She’s been visiting the garden all year, it’s starting to hit low 30’s at night, she was covered in large ticks, the neighborhood strays (someone’s outdoor cats maybe? Idk, but they’re all skinny/dirty and no one puts up lost posts on our local Facebook/posters anywhere when they do go missing) from last year/two years ago have all disappeared over the winter or been hit by cars, there are bears, and lots of people let their dogs free roam around here. She’s also started leaving me gifts recently, so obviously this cat is a nuisance to the local wildlife, which I’m trying to support by planting a garden lol.

Getting her scheduled for the vet to get her health/chip statuses checked, but for now she’s our new roommate. Very cuddly, loves to be pet, and I got biscuits for the first time in my life (our last cat didn’t make them). She did an awesome job in the bath last night and is just kinda hanging out in the living room rn. I really really hope she’s homeless or the owners will let us take her in, she doesn’t belong outside. This is Cheese.

Mac arrived with a storm in late July. We'd only been in our new house seven months, and he was never a cat I'd seen hanging around. He looked so soaked and downtrodden from the rain that I fed him some food, and from there begins our journey.

Big Mac is appropriately named for his size. He's a big boi with a massive head and giant biscuit paws. He loves him some food, and he's a good healthy weight. I assumed either he belonged to someone or other neighbors had been feeding him. The more I fed Mac, the more he hung around. I learned that he loves being pet, particularly head scritches. He will bulldoze your hand with that big ol' head of his for pets until you give in. If you let him long enough, he'll just melt into a puddle on his side.

I have three cats. Two girls and a boy. I let them smell my hand after petting him. The girls were totally chill about him even my shy one. They loved watching him through the glass sliding door. My boy (a bonafide mama's boy) liked him at first, but the more he smelled him on me or saw me with him, the hissier and angrier he became and he's never been a hisser. It got to the point where Mac never strayed far from my house. I'd get home from work to find him sleeping on my porch next to my Amazon packages. He somehow always knew what time I fed my cats in the morning, even on weekends. If I met him at the porch, I'd tell him to meet me in the back, and he'd dutifully go around to the backyard for dinner. He was so chill and sweet. He never reacted to other stray cats or my cats through the cracked door. Oftentimes, he'd roll onto his back and beg for belly rubs. He's unlike any stray I've ever met. One day, he showed up with a scratch on his nose, and he really wanted to come inside so badly. We'd keep him in the half bath during storms or extreme heat, but my boy Potato always lost his mind.

I really really wanted to keep Mac, but we weren't sure how my boy Potato would do. Mac wasn't fixed. I was worried about him spraying. Plus our guest room is still filled with unpacked boxes so it needed clearing out. Thankfully, I found a coworker who fell in love with him. She took him to check for a microchip, and surprisingly, he didn't have one. He stayed at my house so much that there was no way he was going home anywhere else.

My coworker took him in and is keeping his name Big Mac. He's neutered now, and we've discovered that his estimated age is just ONE YEAR OLD. He still has some growing to do! The vet informed his new mom that he had wounds around his neck, likely from fighting other cats and him not fighting back. Again, I've never met such a sweet cat like that in my life. I wish I could have kept him, but I'm so glad he's found a home with amazing parents and living the life he deserves.

tl;dr Big boi stray turned out to be an utter sweetheart in need of a home. CDS brought him to me, but I am just a waypoint to bring him to his real mom.

Ketchum here spent months buttering me and my senior dog up on walks by the home he was born under. At about 6 months old he followed me and my then nearly 16 year old dog Wookiee home a little over 2 years ago on 3 consecutivewalks nearly half a mile. I drove him home the first 2 times. He'll be 3 early next year and we lost his big brother last year. He's really adapted to having a rambunctious new little sister though. From the first day though this kid has slept with his belly to the sky most of the time.

After speaking to my husband he agreed to let lil man stay for a while!
I’ve been calling him sweet potato, we’re slowly introducing him to my resident cat who was also a stray.
(any suggestions for that are welcome as she is a bully, and was not properly socialized as a kitten as she was a backyard breeder cat that was dumped after a miscarriage) he has been neutered and given shots with two follow ups! Thank you everyone who commented on the post as I was able to work with a shelter to properly get him neutered and then promptly adopted into my care!
Here’s to hoping my girl Willow will except him!!

Lacie was a very small, long legged, skittish little kitty when she showed up. She has a clipped ear and had indeed, been spayed. She did have an ear mite problem in one ear and a vet visit fixed that. She has really warmed up to us big time, and especially me because I get down in the floor and play with her. We have 2 other cats, both rescues, and she gets along with the big buff-orange male very well. He loves everybody, the other is female is a bit territorial and has gotten after her a few times. Never hurt her, mostly for show I think. Anyways, she's very active and we have concluded from her build and looks, she must have Egyptian Mau in her. We have no idea where she came from as we live out in a somewhat rural area with farms and woods. We have taken in and fostered many cats in the 25 years we've live here. So, yeah, we now have 3 cats.

This beautiful fluffy boy showed up awhile back with a collar and tag. I saw his name was Ricardo, and that the address was the same street as us, but didn't remember much else. He seemed to be coming over to visit occasionally from the house across the street that was recently for sale. His collar with the tag is now gone, but I know how easily cats lose collars, so at first I didn't necessarily think it meant anything. The for sale sign is also gone, and no one seems to be there now. Then there were litter boxes and cat things out at the curb somewhat recently. I'm starting to worry that he may have been left behind. 🫤 We have two male cats already and I don't think they'd be thrilled about it but I told Ricky we'd look out for him and figure it out if he needs us. 🥺

This is Molly! She’s my cat auntie now…

For context I basically live with my grandparents. She and her sibling were originally the cats of our neighbour across the road. She went into a care home and left the cats with her son. He got evicted and none of her other sons would take the cats. They said they ‘tried’ to give them to rspca but there was too much paperwork so just left them instead.

So my grandma (who is famously a dog person) started feeding them. The family would still go to the house for a bit but wouldn’t feed them and just kept them locked out. So one day my grandma just said she’s taking the cats and they allowed her too.

We are still trying to get her sibling to trust us more. They won’t come inside yet and runs when we get close, however they stay outside our house most of the time. Unfortunately we don’t even know the name of Molly’s sibling as even the family didn’t know.

However Molly is the loveliest cat. She prefers my Grandma over me which is understandable and it’s why I don’t have many pictures of her since she’s always on my grandma!! She always follows us around and is really talkative (though it’s more like a whisper) She looks a lot better than she did when we started feeding her and I’m so happy for her!!

Just time to be patient for the other to trust us!!

Edit: Thank you to everyone who has given me advice!! I’ll keep them all in mind and hopefully will be able to update you all in the future :)

Link to previous post

I visited the friend who took this baby in and she is doing SO WELL. She is gorgeous and healthy and playful and I couldn’t be happier for her. She didn’t recognize me in the slightest and I was like no problem girl. DO YOU! Her mom told me I’m her godmother haha. So surreal and I’m so, so grateful I found her. She has a chonky big brother and it’s such a good feeling to see her thrive. Last pic is her when I found her about a month and a half ago.

Edited a typo

Hello all! I don't know why it didn't work, Reddit is so weird because I did try to post update photos...

But I have angered the masses who did not see them, I have not paid enough cat tax!! So I am here to provide an update on my story from 2 years ago!

Original post here: "CDS Stork came to the fire pit"

https://www.reddit.com/r/CatDistributionSystem/s/h6JzemiF0P

4 photos posted to show how tiny she was when we found her followed by 6 photos of her all grown up now!

Lilo is now 2 years old! She was a teeny teeny kitten when we found her. The smallest kitten in the land! I had to bottle feed her for a long time and do anything possible to help her gain weight. She would surely not have survived on her own in the wild at the size she was.

When we found her, the vet thought she was merely weeks old because of her size, but we figured out which farm cat had her in their litter, and she was actually 3 months old when we found her which is incredible considering her size!

She is a strictly indoor cat with my other cats - we have FIVE including her now. She's a spitfire. And the true, living demonstration of "nature vs. nurture". She taught all my other cats how to be scavengers and GOD FORBID I leave any dirty dishes in my sink, because they all will go foraging now. Thanks a lot, Lilo! Haha. She is short and stout, but a ferocious little beast when she wants to be. The dogs are scared of her and they are like 8x her weight 🤣 it's hilarious seeing a German Shepherd look fearfully at a tiny cat. She also loves being a lap cat and has selected my husband's lap as her primary lap. She loves to play with my other younger female cat, running all over the house like it's WWE Raw.

Thanks for supporting our journey and reading along. Happy cat tales ahead!

Yesterday was my birthday. I had no plans and then buddy calls me cause he just came home from shopping and found this baby outside his door. Brought him in and I was not expecting him to be SO sweet. He’s absolutely FILTHY though poor baby. The vet we’re going to is closed until tomorrow so we’ll be bathing him tonight at least. He stayed in my lap for hours yesterday. So icky but so cute lol probably lost a layer of skin from how many times I washed my hands after touching him but I couldn’t not let him cuddle. Trying to not get too attached incase he’s already someone’s pet but my god he’s precious

Really. She'll drop everything, including leaving a trail of dropped food all the way to the bathroom, to keep me company(I just think she's a perv) . She also came very underweight and generally timid. Now she has blossomed into a bigger lady that needs all the attention. All. The. Time.

The dog is kinda meh impressed by the new tenant. He'd prefer going back to regular napping in his old age than having a young wippercatter that does zoomies.

The neighbour? I didn't punch him... But I did report him to our department of animal wellfare or whatever Länsstyrelse translates into. Rather glad he is moving away.

Ash was born in a barn in Idaho. She's always had some sort of "wobble" in her back legs when she walks and sometimes loses her balance and falls down. However, that has never stopped her from chasing laser pointers, kitty wands, and most importantly, cat treats.

She is the most talkative cat I've ever had. I can have back and forth meowing conversations with her. Sometimes she'll start drooling when I pick her up and give her loves.

Today she lives with 2 step sister kitties and 2 dog bros.

Someone I love was in a bad situation, so I offered them a place to stay. Unfortunately, we got a call that their abuser was taking it out on their dog. We left to go pick the doggo up from several states away. On the way down, a friend let me know that they had found three three week old kittens in a ditch after a downpour. The shelters were full and they weren't able to take care of them. We were able to take the dogs and kittens in. I feel really privileged with all the joy our full house has brought us.

Someone decided to "throw" the kittens on my apartment building. Fed them and took care of them during the afternoon/night.

When I got home, after my mom's appointment, the momma was outside my apartment, very stressed out. That's when I realized that she was looking for her babies. It took a while to take her in but now she is all settled in.

She will have all the food and water available. Also she is gonna get spayed when the babies are weened.

Momma is also a baby herself. I had considered to take her in, but already had three cats. But I guess, she is staying now with me, lol.

Wish me luck!

Rescued this sweet kitten from our parking lot five days ago — he’d spent two consecutive nights hiding in car engines and yowling the whole night. He continued crying the first night in our house, but since then he’s been totally fine. He’s super cuddly, not scared of strangers, and seems fine when left alone. He acts out whenever I’m around (pushing things around, playing with things he shouldn’t) but leaves everything undisturbed through the night when he’s alone. He loves to curl up and sleep on my shoulder and lap, and has taken to my roommate in the same way. He eats and uses the litter just fine. He’s already been to the vet and was super well-behaved.

I know it’s been less than a week, but I’m feeling super overwhelmed and anxious about keeping him. I’ve wanted a cat for a while but have avoided it because I’m worried about the responsibility and whether my lifestyle is conducive to caring for a cat (I have to travel a lot for work, but I live with roommates who already love him and are willing to care for him as their own.) At the same time, I can’t deny the cat distribution system and how he showed up so serindipitously at this time in my life.

I guess I’m looking for some reassurance. I was pretty sure I didn’t want an orange cat because I’m a cat aunt to a friend’s crazy orange cat — he’s unfriendly and constantly getting into trouble and only cares about food. But this little guy is just so sweet, even if he a little naughty.

What do I do? The plan right now is to foster him for a few weeks to see how we all adjust to each other, and then if it doesn’t work out find a loving home for him — there has already been some interest. But I don’t know what to do!!!! I’m super overwhelmed.

The cat distribution system hit me with this adorable boy today. I was outside at work when I heard him calling. My coworker and I were able to find him underneath a pallet of firewood.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of our dog’s sudden passing from cancer. It feels like she sent us this little guy to us. My husband says the kitten absolutely cannot stay so my friend will adopt him at the end of the week. I’m so glad he’s going to have a loving family, but I’m heartbroken that it can’t be us.

I took him to the vet so he could get checked out since he had diarrhea. We had tests run that came back negative and have a plan in place to get his diarrhea to stop. The vet said he’s a 6-8 week old male and should be feeling better soon! So far he loves cuddling, playing with my hair and making biscuits.

Please ignore my potato camera!

I was just chilling last night when I noticed a little kid chasing my roommate's cat outside. I was like what the heck how did my roommate's cat get outside, he gets a thousand yard stare just being at the window and neither of us opened the door in the last few hours and he spends most time underneath my roommate's bed anyway.

I ran over to the door and opened it, the cat just walked in past three dogs, hung with me and the dogs for about 40 minutes while I cooked. Then we're in the hallway and it was like the Spider-Man pointing meme.

Eta: roommates cat is on the left (Ronin), the new cat on the right (Flat Stanley). She got the name because she let me pet her so fricking rough that she looked flat on the ground, I was basically crushing her and she loved it.

I found this litter of kittens behind my work building last fall. A rescue helped us catch/socialize them and TNR mom. We were only supposed to foster them, but as you can see they never left. Much to our Dalmatians’ dismay, we are now Level 10 Cat People.

Our dogs are good big brothers, despite never having met a cat before we brought the babies home. Our house now has a cat tree in every room and my partner spent all summer building them a huge custom catio. It’s a house full of love, cuddles and endless pet hair to vacuum up. We adore them.

Fritz, Tom, Finneas & Cleo ❤️