Hi,

We have a stray/feral cat that moved into our garden about 3 weeks ago. After about a week we noticed that it was still there and not moving on so us and our neighbours (shared garden) started to feed it (all the kids insisted) and provided it with a box and blanket that it loves and sleeps in all the time.

I have since built it a cat house. A large, raised of the ground (only slightly to protect from damp) wooden chest with a catflap. There is more than enough room for the cat to turn around and move about in. When I built it I added a cat flap to help protect it from the cold UK winters as it is not a heated cat house but is sheltered with blankets and has waterproofing.

The cat however, lives in the box and will not venture into the cathouse that we hoped would help it throughout the winter (it can not be brought inside as there are multiple doors to go through for it to enter and leave at will).

Does anyone have any ideas how we can help coax the cat to use its new house?

All suggestions Appreciated.

Cheers,

Barky

Welcome to the mad house

Not sure what to suggest for your stray maybe take the cat flap off & see if he/she will go in then & when he/she's used to going in try putting it back on, I would also report it to the local vets, rescues etc someone might be out looking for it

__________________

All my children have paws!

Thanks for you response Dally.

This morning I propped open the flap actually so she could see there is no danger fo being trapped, still waiting for it to take its first steps inside though. Removing the flap is not easy as it is a piece of furniture that was adapted to have the flap, took me less than an hour to assemble the chest but over 2 hours to iinstal the flap as it was a slatted chest.

We have looked around for posters and asked everyone in the area but no one has seen the cat before or heard of anyone missing a cat. It has no collar and does not really like coming inside for longer than about 5 mins hence the reason we thought it was probably feral. But I will check the local vets to see if they have anyone looking for the cat.

Thanks again for your help.

Barky

Some good news,

Took its first steps inside, well front paws and chest.

I have propped open the cat flap which had made no effect, was still shunned, However, I placed some dry Vet food inside (after putting some in her outsdie bowl, which she ate) plus a catnip toy.

Not great shakes but a start.

The vet i got the dry food from had heard nothing of a lost cat by our description, which is a shame if someone has really lost it.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day :-)

Cheers,

Barky