I live In Melbourne Australia.
I took a stray tom to the vet, which passed him to a shelter. They’ve now asked if I’ll adopt him and I have until 5PM today. I’ve been torn and would love input from people with experience in adopting semi-feral cats. I want to know what challenges and behaviors I should expect if I take him
The stray visited my cat daily for weeks, and my cat would run out to greet him whenever he trilled. He was submissive, never competitive, and when my cat tried to play he showed that he didn’t like it, and it stopped without escalation. I wasn’t feeding him at first, so he was coming for the company. My cat is very social with other cats and has been friendly to two other unfamiliar cats who briefly entered our house. I expect the relationship would need re-establishing on shared territory, but the signs are good.
He started out keeping his distance from me, then sat calmly nearby and was comfortable coming right to my feet if my cat was with me. After a few times feeding him, not quite from my hand but close to, he calmly stepped over my legs (I was laying on my side) and wandered into the house. When I shut the door to get him microchip-checked, he panicked, hid, and has hissed, growled and swatted ever since, including two weeks at the shelter, who now class him as unsocialised, though they acknowledge the stress. They have asked me if I want to take him and if I will they will de sex and vaccinate him. They said they will otherwise need to euthanase him. I don’t want guilt to cloud my judgement, but I also want to give him a chance.
I don’t expect him to be cuddly. I just want to know if it seems he would adapt, and what it would take. Could it work or would I just be adding a nightmare to my life?
If it doesn’t work out, I’d consider euthanasia as a resort, but I’m worried about the in-between case: he adapts partway, stays difficult, and by then I’m attached enough that euthanasia feels too drastic. I’d like to know how likely that is, so I can decide now rather than later.
UPDATE:
Theyve allowed me and extra day to decide. I have found out that there are groups who work spesficly with strays and I am trying to contact them to see if they can advice me and if we can work together. I'll give another update tomorrow.
UPDATE 2: I have agreed to take him, and have had another shelter who says they could likely help me re home further down the track if needed. Thank you everyone, I've read through all the comments, I just really dont have time to respond to them all right now, but they did help.
Also, sorry that the casual way I spoke about Euthanasia made people uncomfortable, its how the shelter was talking about it and I just reflected it. I live in Australia where there is a huge drive to reduce the presence of cats, barn placements are rare, TNR is illegal in many places. The general sentiment before posting here was that that was the sensible path.