Spaying a cat that isn't your cat

I live in a very rural area. There is one other house on my street. Unfortunately they are the type that gets dogs and lets them run all over the place and when they get run over they just get another one. It's sad.

From time to time people dump unwanted cats off on our road and somehow sensing a nearby crazy cat lady they make their way to my house. I always take these cats and have them fixed, if they are pregnant then they and their kittens are fixed. One of these cats ended up at my neighbors house and of course they didn't fix her. She comes to our house has kittens and just as they are getting old enough that mommy cat could get fixed she disappears again. This time we have brought her and the kittens in the house. The neighbors don't seem to miss her at all - I'm not even certain they know she goes to eat at their house. As I said they go through dogs on a disgustingly regular basis. I'm planning on taking her soon to be fixed. Then if she wants to go back home to them, that's fine. But at least she won't be having more kittens. I've been trying to trap the male cat that keeps getting her pregnant, but he is completely feral and I've only caught very quick glimpses of him.

Is it wrong to spay someone else's cat like this? It's so frustrating that they don't seem to care for their animals at all.

No, I don't think it's wrong at all and I would do the same thing. I have a very similar situation where I live and I have taken in several cats and a dog that the neighbors just won't take care of and yes I got them fixed and now they are mine. The cats come to my house and they are hungry, so I feed them. The neighbors don't care about the animals and that makes me furious.

This last episode happened earlier in the year when the neighbors got a new kitten. The kitten would come to our house and of course we would feed her. Winter came and it was cold outside so my husband and I made the kitten a bed outside. We had considered bringing her inside our house when it was cold, but we already had 3 inside cats and after all, it wasn't our cat. If we would have known what was going to happen, we would have brought her inside. Anyway, one morning my husband and I had to run some errands and when we got back, the kitten was in her bed outside our door, shivering and bleeding. It was 16 degrees outside that morning. We immediately brought her into the house and she would not come out of her bed. She finally warmed up and we coaxed her out. I do not know what happened to this poor kitten, but 3 of her 4 legs were injured. Her front legs each had a large patch of fur missing and the skin was totally ripped off of one of her back legs and foot. To make a long story short, my husband and I doctored on her and healed up her injuries and she now stays inside the house with us. The neighbors eventually moved away but they never did ask us if we had seen their kitten. If they would have, I would not have given the kitten back to them anyway.

Well, that cat is basically a stray, so you're really not stepping on any lines. In these general situations, not only do I think it's right to spay or neuter someone's cat, I think they shouldn't even get her back. I've seen these situations a lot of times, but at the moment I'm just unable to do something. I still live with my family who are very unsupportive. But in the future, I don't plan to just sit and watch, I would "kidnap" the animal and try to help it any way I can.
Kudos to you for your amazing work. People like you really give me some faith in the world.

I don't think it's wrong at all. Especially in a situation where the cat is basicly a stray. It's better it gets done by someone if no one else seems to care, because the more kittens on the street the more ferel cats there will be. Or heaven forbid they end up at the shelter in abundance and are killed.


It's not like you walked into someone's house and kidnapped their pet withought their knowledge. This is important. When we adopted our cat from the animal shelter they insisted we get her fixed because people have such a bad reputation for just dumping kittens that their cats had. My last base we lived at, the area was over run by stray and abused dogs. It was sickening. I'm sure they were breeding pit bulls to fight as well. The animal shelter often had free events to give people free pet things they needed and to discuss spaying and neutering. Unfortunately people still didn't get it.

Somewhere else on this forum someone posted about catching and releasing feral cats, AFTER they'd spayed or neutered them. I think if these animals are negatively impacting your home, you have the right to have them spayed. I give you a lot of credit. Someone I know lives in a place with LOTS of barn cats (he feeds them, so they stick around). He called the local shelter and they told him $50 donation per cat was necessary. Since he has something like 12-15 cats living around his house it wouldn't be financially possible for him to do that. So...he'll just keep having more and more cats. I think you're wise to take a proactive approach to this situation, or you could end up in the same boat.

I wish I could do that here. Spaying and neutering costs a lot where I live. If I did this, I would end up in the poor house. There are many stary cats around here and although I think people care, the problem is nobody can afford it. It would cost around $25 per cat and to us that's big. In the vicinity of my house there are at least 15 cats. There are more down the street and even more in other places. I wish the city government would have a budget for this. Perhaps we can just pretend to be the owners of the cats if they would spay for free. The put stray cats to sleep and I can't have that on my conscience.

If I knew the cat belonged to someone else, I would talk to them about it in person - I would never just take their cats and get them fixed on my own. If they were just stray cats with no home, then I would have no problem bringing them to a no kill shelter where they can get fixed and put up for adoption. I would definitely complain to the neighbor about letting their non-fixed cats roam around freely like that, and perhaps ask them directly if they even plan to keep the cat(s) as a pet.

We confronted my grandparents neighbors who were letting their dog roam the neighborhood. She eventually got hit by a truck and they didn't want to take her into the vet, so they told us we could have her if we wanted. We had her for nearly 15 years after that, until she passed away from natural causes.