Life of a Stray Cat
Is life as a stray really as good as we think?
Stray cats, we’ve seen them everywhere growing up. Outside your house, on your school campus, sitting by the side of tables waiting for food. We like to comfort ourselves by saying “they’ll survive on their own” or “they love their freedom”. But what is life really like for a stray cat? What is the price of ‘freedom’ as a stray cat?
Thousands of cats across Malaysia call the streets their home. And the streets are not kind.
They spend their day:
- Wandering and fighting for their next meal
- Fighting other cats for territory
- Chased by dogs
- Hit by cars
- Poisoned and abused by cruel people
- Living with illness and injuries
Wandering for food
A stray cat does not wake up knowing where their next meal is coming from. They wake up hungry and will go to sleep hungry. Finding food means wandering, whether that’s through traffic, heat, and rain. It means competing with other strays, chasing after scraps, and drinking water from drains and puddles.
Fighting for Territory
Cats are territorial by nature, but on the streets, territory means survival. Strays fight each other constantly, whether for food, for shelter, for the right to exist in a single alleyway. The fights leave wounds, torn ears, abcsesses, which can later get infected or infested with maggots. A wounded cat on the street has no one to clean their wounds or give them medicine.
Dangers of the Streets
As if finding food and shelter wasn’t enough, stray cats are also chased by dogs, poisoned by cruel people, cars hit them and drive on. A stray cat lives their entire life in fight or flight mode, never truly safe and never fully rested.
Illness
Everyday, stray cats face dangers they don’t understand. Illness is not the exception, its the rule. Nearly every stray cat is sick, injured, or both. Fleas, ticks, and fungal infections spread easily an persistently grow if untreated. Diseases like feline parvovirus spread rapidly through colonies and are lethal without immediate medical intervention. Some feline viruses have no cure at all, they weaken the immune system until the cat can no longer fight off even the mildest infection. Because strays live in close proximity, with no quarintine, no vaccination, and no vet, these viruses tear through colonies in weeks.
A stray cat does not suffer from one illness at a time. It suffers from all of them at once, parasites, infections, viruses, malnutrition, etc. A sick cat cannot hunt and a cat that cannot hunt does not eat.
Caspian
Mothers play a vital role in the survival of kittens, without mom there’s no one to feed and clean them, allowing fleas and sicknesses to attack their still developing immune systems. The mother of Caspian was a young mom who left her children when they were only 1.5mo old, left to face the harsh outdoors on their own.
We found Capsian underweight and skinny, covered in fleas, and had inflamed testicles. Upon taking him to the clinic, he was diagnosed with a lung infection along with feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), causing his lungs to fill with pus. It is a very painful condition where each breath feels like you’re drowning. He spent three months at the clinic receiving daily injections and occasionally had to get the pus manually removed from his lungs because there was too much
Dusk
Dusk and her male partner were both dumped on our campus grounds, both not neutered. She gave birth in a shed, on a rag with dried paint and nails on the floor. She was probably the most stressed mother I’ve ever seen, anyone could tell she absolutely did not enjoy motherhood. She was so relieved when we found her nest, she came up to us and could finally relax. We brought her food over the course of her mothering despite her only taking a few bites each time. Her increased stress response to having children made us theorise that she may have been used as a breeder cat in the past, constantly having litter after litter of kittens for someone to sell online. When the kittens were a month old, screaming and learning how to walk and run, Dusk left and never came back. Two of her kittens have wandered off since her disappearance, and we found a foster home for the remaining two. This happened while our rescue was still growing so we did not have the funds to spay her at the time, but looking back, not spaying her was one of my deepest regrets and failures in my time of cat rescuing. It hurts me to know that she may be out there, still having kittens and going through that same cycle of suffering today.
Her partner, Plush, went ahead and got three more cats pregnant before also disappearing. Within the course of three months, he produced 17 kittens, 7 of which either died or went missing during their neonatal years.
Tom
He was a 3mo old ginger kitten who was mauled to death by dogs in front of our school. Me team was notified of the body and we went to collect it the next day to bury him. His body was bloated from the flesh decaying, his lower stomach was torn open and his intestines were hanging out, there were flies and maggots crawling over him. You could smell the body while standing up, it was easily the worst thing I’ve ever smelled in my life. I had to hold my breath the entire way we walked to the burial site. I didn’t know what his voice sounded like, I didn’t know what kind of kitten he was, I didn’t know what was his favourite treat or favourite toy. But I knew he died in pain.
Chihiro
Chihiro was a beloved campus cat who was well fed and taken care of by students for years. She had people who knew her name, came back from classes to feed her, people who stoped by to clean and pet her. But she was still a stray, and no amount of love from the outside could change that. Once accident changed everything. She fell from the sixth floor and had cracked her upper mouth palette. Students who loved her rushed her to the vet immediately. Unfortunately, after spending the entire day in the ICU, Chihiro collapsed and took her last breath. She had food, she had love, she had people who cared. But what she didn’t have was a home.
A stray cat’s life is not measured by how well they eat or how many people love them. It is measured by what happens on their worst day, and on the streets, there is no safety net for that day. That cat is not “free.” It is not “fine on its own.” It is barely surviving and it is one bad day away from not surviving at all. Stray cats don’t need our pity, they need us to stop looking away.