Of Cats: My Experience with Singapore Strays (Part 3)

A question that had lingered in my mind before I started feeding community cats was “What should I feed stray cats in Singapore?”. Feeding stray cats should be a concerted effort from everyone in the community.

In Part 3 of this series, I will be talking about nutrition for the stray cats and what we can and should feed them.

Before I start, I will like to discuss responsible feeding. The below image is an advisory by the Cat Welfare Society, which I find very useful to all kind-hearted souls who want to feed stray cats.

Retrieved from Cat Welfare Society

As such, if you notice, I have actually committed an “error” by not using either plates or bowls in the Part 1 of my post. After I discovered the above advisory by the Cat Welfare Society, I have since started to use a plastic bowl.

 Black cat from Part 1, using tips from Part 2, I managed to get so close!

STRAY CAT NUTRITION
(1) Dry food / Kibble / Raw meat / Cooked meat
Dry food should be the main staple of a community cat's diet. It provides essential carbohydrates and proteins for a stray cat's daily activity.

Unlike dogs who are omnivores, cats are carnivores, meaning that their diet should contain little fibre (which are found in large quantities in vegetables).

Some people do comment that dry food is not really healthy. For example, it is a well-known fact that meat by-products, unable for human consumption, such as the beak, head, feet are used to make dry pet food. Furthermore, to make the kibbles more filling, manufacturers add in corn meal.

Hence, if you have the money, you can purchase raw or cooked meat for cats to eat. I find that some community cats like chicken, more than the commonly-perceived fish.

However, I believe that stray cats are already grateful to have food to eat, be it dry kibble or the more nutritious cooked or raw meat. As long as there are food to eat, these community cats will have a better life.

(2) Water / Milk
Like human beings, stray cats require water for survival. I have often seen stray cats licking the dew off plants for their daily water intake or drinking from the dirty drains which is definitely insufficient and unhealthy for these community cats.

Whenever I feed stray cats, I will always bring a bottle of pet's milk or fresh boiled water with me. Pet’s milk is definitely recommended as the community cats’ stomach might not be able to process the lactose, causing unnecessary pain and harm to the lives of the cats.

In the next post, I will talk about some of the misconceptions that might exist when feeding stray cats and how we can help them.

Support the Cat Welfare Society

Of Cats: My Experience with Singapore Strays (Part 2)

As promised, in Part 2 of this series, I will be sharing how we can approach stray cats, or pets for that matter.

APPROACHING STRAY CATS
The key to approaching all cats and dogs, regardless whether they are strays or not, is to treat them like you will treat any other human being, with respect. Respect can come in many forms - respecting their physical private space, respecting their social comfort zone and respecting their own characteristics and behaviour.

To put it simply, like humans, cats and dogs have their own level of comfort around others. To approach them, you must understand their characteristics and behaviour, which us why Part 1 of this series is introducing the different groups of community cats.

I have mainly adapted my points from the below poster:

(Photo Credits: Sophia Yin Blog)

Below are some tips that I find useful when I approach community cats that I have never interacted with before. I believe these tips are fairly universal and can be applied to approaching stray dogs and other pets.

(1) Recognising their boundaries
Every cats and dog has their own personal comfort zone. Once you enter it's comfort zone, they will feel that you are infringing their personal space and security and their limbic system will kick in - meaning that they will either choose to launch an attack or flee.

Recognising that each stray cat and dog has different level of comfort around people is the first step to successfully approaching a community cat or stray dog. But this also means recognising that some cats and dogs find it hard for people to approach them and there are times when it will take a long time before you will be able to approach a cat or a dog and successfully pet it. It also means recognising that you might never ever fully gain full confidence from a stray cat or dog.

Knowing the comfort zone will allow you to build trust with the stray cat or dog too. Like humans, stray cats and dogs will start to trust you when you respect their physical and social comfort zone. 

You can build this essential trust by always standing at a safe distance between the stray cat or dog and you. Let them smell you from a distance. If they don't look alarmed, then approach them slowly (more on this in the next section). This is especially so for the community cats I have categorised as "The Wild" (see Part 1) as they need more time to trust you.

(2) Approach slowly and calmly
Would you like it if a stranger runs towards you and start touching your head and your body? Definitely not! Women will start shouting "Molest!" and men will start giving punches and kicks to this rude boundaries.

However, you will most likely be cordial if a stranger approaches you slowly and calmly, looking at you from the peripheral vision (more on this later) and asking for verbal or facial recognition before proceeding to "touch" you.

Similarly, the best way to approach community cats or stray dogs will be to approach them slowly and calmly. This will not alarm them of you as a perceived threat.

(3) Using your peripheral vision
It can be a scary experience if you realise someone has been staring at you. For stray cats and dogs too, staring at them and approaching at them head-on is a very scary experience as well.

What a "stare" means to a dog
(Photo Credits: Sophia Yin Blog)

This is especially so if approach with your mouth wide open and your teeth showing. To the stray cats and dogs, they will treat the sight of teeth as a sign of aggression, so they might respond consequently with a bite or a scratch.

Using your peripheral vision means approaching the community cats and stray dogs sideways, and looking at them calmly from the side of you eyes. This lets the stray cats and dogs know you are interested in approaching them, but yet not making yourself seem like a major threat.

(4) Understanding body language
Unlike humans, stray cats and dogs do not use much verbal language to communicate. Hence, to understand the community cats and stray dogs requires a good grasp of what their body language means. 

The poster below is a good summary of how dogs in general behave.

The language that never lies - body language

Most cats behave in the same way. However, there are a few differences to how a cat behaves.

A cat that feels threatened and that is about to attack rarely "meows", like how a dog will bark. However, threatened stray cats will first move to show its whole body, then proceeds to hunching its back to increase the surface area before showing its teeth.

A threatened cat - look at the hunched back and open mouth showing teeth
(Photo Credits: Google Images - Pet Wellbeing)

In addition, a cat that feels hungry and that does not perceive you as a threat will always "meow" to you. It is a sign of attracting attention.

*Some of the above tips are adapted from Sophia Yin's "How to Greet a Dog and What to Avoid".

Otherwise, you can download her eBook from by clicking here.

Of Cats: My Experience with Singapore Strays (Part 1)

To start off, I want to share a Singapore Tail - my experience with community cats. This is something rather close to my heart, so there will be quite some anecdotes. I will split this blog post into a few days, so do keep a look out!

INTRODUCTION
Other than the HDB flats and skyscrapers , the only thing that can epitomise the Singaporean landscape is the stray cats. These stray cats come in all breeds, all ages and all sizes, yet one thing unites them - that is, they are often looked at with disdain, often treated with abuse and often suffer at the memories of past trauma.

They learn to evade detection, hiding behind trees, hiding in the bushes or hiding under cars. In my experiences feeding stray cats, I have identified two broad groups of community cats, the characteristics they possess and their unique behaviours.

THE TWO GROUPS
(1) The Hungry
I label this group of cats as "the hungry", because, honestly, their hunger is the motivating factor for their actions. Once they smell something faintly nice, they will start following you. Many a times, people treat them as “aggressors”, while in actual fact, they are likely the cats that have been once domesticated before, but eventually abandoned.

Due to their over-zealousness in getting the food, they often launch forward, which will scare most people. But, from my experience, these cats will never attack you - they will often look at you with their big enduring eyes, sit in front of you and wait for you to feed them. They are never shy; they enjoy the pats on the back and the affection you show them. Ironically, it is this exact trait - their trust of human beings - that results to them being brutally assaulted and abused sometimes.

A defining characteristic of these cats is that they can be picky eaters sometimes. Once, I tried feeding such a cat with dry kibbles, but it did not like it, merely smelling it before crawling away. They often tend to eat little too, because they often think that they will be fed a next meal.

However, it is sad to see them suffer, because their prior domestication since young has made them lose most of their prey drive and instinctual feline powers to catch preys. Hence, they often rely on leftover food from dustbins for their meals.

Yummy! Enjoying some kibble.

Slurping some milk

If you look carefully, you can see that this cat has been sterilised or neutered before. Vets usually cut off part of the left ear for easy identification.

I find that this group of cats prefer canned food, or certain types of kibbles that have a more apparent fragrance. I will recommend some brands of affordable cat food in Part 3 of this series.

(2) The Wild
The only home this group of cats have known since their birth is literally “the wild”, hence the categorisation.

This group of cats are the wary ones; they understand that not all humans are nice and they likely have experienced pain and trauma when they were kittens and now, they try to evade humans by crawling away once anyone crosses into their comfort zone.

Cat crawling away at the sound and sight of me

They have heightened senses and have learnt all possible tricks of evasion. They will crawl under cars, crawl under drain covers and crawl into small crevices to hide detection.

Hiding under a car

Enjoying some kibble, yum!

I believe these cats have more capabilities as predators. I once saw a cat, which I think belong to this group, pounce on an unsuspecting crow, injuring it with a bite. This is testament to the prey drive that normal cats will have.

However, it is very difficult to feed them. It takes much more effort to connect with them. So, how did I manage to get so close to this black cat without scaring it?

I will talk about this more in Part 2 of this series tomorrow.

*This list is by no means exhaustive or exclusive. If you have something to add, you are more than welcome to!

In the next few days, I will touch on how to approach these community cats, what we can do to help these stray cats and what we can feed these stray cats.

Of Dogs and Cats: Singapore Tails

I am not a dog owner nor a cat owner, but I do certainly hope to be one soon. And, in this blog, l will blissfully act as if I owned one already!

So, this blog will serve as my diary and my point of contact to the vast world of animal lovers out there. I want to, one day, be able to look back and smile at these memories that I once had. I will unabashedly share everything - from my experiences with neighbours' dogs to my experiences feeding strays, from cat and dog food reviews to reviews on books and movies about our dear pets. All these from my Uniquely Singapore perspective. But the love for our pets will transcend physical boundaries, so all are welcome to read and share!

I will also try to offer consolidated opinions and fresh perspectives to learn how to train your pets; I am by no means an expert, but from what I have read, often the best advice comes from the person who has the same interest as you, and who has the same questions you will have - be it as a current or future dog owner.

Feel free to ask me any questions on dogs and cats, I will gladly answer them - either from my personal experience or from carefully considered and collected information.

So, this is my Singapore Tails (pun always intended) and I hope you will like it!


Update: 15th Nov 2011
It is official! On this special day, I have decided to launch a dog-walking service to all Singaporeans, preferably those staying in the West and North areas.

Contact me through email (singaporetails@gmail.com) or handphone (93261040) to know more!

I will update more in a later blog post!