Help. Don't know what to do…

“So what do I do? If I try to help, it would mean a whole lot of stress to him just to capture and cage him. Is it worth getting him stressed like that just end his suffering?
Do we just let him suffer and die?”

I would say to do it, because if he has any sort of disease, then it can be contained. If let alone, not only will he die a suffering death, but IF he does have a contagiouse disease, other animals could get it. 🙁 If he looks real bad, maybe calling some one would be better?

We had a cat that showed up out of no where one year, beaten looking, breathing heavy, flies. We took it in to be put down at the local vet and told them that we had been unsure about bringing it in or not, and they told us what I mentioned above. Safer then sorry.

🙁

I recommend not even attempting to touch him. In fact, it sounds semi-scary. He’s drinking a lot of water? Sounds like rabies. He needs to be put down and now. Preferably by someone else and preferably that someone else knows how to dispose of the remains.

*edit to add that not eating while drinking a lot is another sign of rabies. Rabies is transmissible to almost all critters–humans, horses, cats, dogs, rodents, etc. Bad, bad news. It’s also transmissible by saliva on his claws and possibly also through the air. If he’s determined to have rabies, you WILL NEED rabies shots. No fun, trust me. And your critters will need their rabies vaccinations updated and might require quarantine.

*edit to add: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2134&aid=346

It’s just sad to see throw away cats like this.

Be VERY careful. Ghostndragon does have a point, so if you do this on your own, make sure you have protection in case the cat decides it has enough energy to try and bite. It might not be as bad as rabies or a contagious disease, but you never know. Let us know what happens.

I’ve had to do this before…. twice actually. One ended up good and another bad.

I captured a cat that was your typical feral stray one day when he arrived with a broken leg. He was not a friendly cat, but he did know we had food and wasn’t afraid of people like most feral cats. He hung around for about a year or so before he arrived with a broken leg and looking very thin. He was hand shy, but I was able to pat him if I had food or milk for him in one hand. We did capture him and much to his dismay, we set his leg ourselves with Popsicle sticks and eventually, he got better and shortly became a part of the family before he ventured back to his entirely outdoor life. I don’t know what happened to him after I moved, but my mother still sees him from time to time.
This is one of the only pictures we got of him, he was pretty afraid of the camera flash and we didn’t want to scare him more. This was a few weeks after we treated him and we took off his bandages. He stayed in our patio room and never really left that couch the whole time he was inside except to eat and poop on our floor. It’s not as if he would know better though since he was probably always outside.

On the bad hand, very similar to whats going on with you, there was a very mean stray who would come and eat food we left out, but bolt as soon as he actually saw us. We would peek out the window and make sure he got fed though. Well, after a few months he started showing up with his head cocked to one side and stumbling like he had an inner ear infection. We tried to catch him, but we just couldn’t. He always managed to get away, he DID NOT LIKE PEOPLE! He disappeared for a while (probably cause we tried to catch him) and I happened across a bad smell going into the house one day after work. Behind a board that was leaning against the house he was underneath, breathing heavy. He had a few flies on him and reeked of just something nearing the end. He didn’t try to run, but lifted his head and let me pet him. I sat with him for about an hour and brought him to our animal shelter to get him put down. I just couldn’t watch him die. I would have probably took him to a vet, but you could just tell. He wasn’t going to make it.

I don’t know if any of those stories help, but I think it’s better to do something rather then nothing. Even if it’s a hard decision to make. I don’t know if I did the right thing when I brought the second stray to get put to sleep, but I like to think I at least shortened his suffering in a cruel world that left him to die to begin with.

I hope you’ll consider trapping him, even if the outcome is sad for him in the end if he cannot be homed or saved. Just be very careful since you don’t know why he is sick (I have personally seen rabies and distemper manifest in some strange ways). Being outside is no good for him, and no good for wild animals, and no good for any other cats he encounters either!