Life With Tiger (An Update)

Do you remember Tiger? He’s the stray cat that just appeared one day when I was working outside about a year-and-a-half ago. He was super friendly, so I started feeding him every day. And naturally, he started sticking pretty close to our house all the time, sometimes sleeping underneath or on top of the van at night.

Other times, when the van wasn’t in the carport, I would wake up in the morning and find him sleeping on my worktable in a pile of sawdust.

Every time I would go outside to work, he would appear and beg for belly scratches.

He wormed his way into my heart pretty quickly, so when the weather started getting cold in December of 2024, I bought him a cat house and insulated it so that he could stay warm at night. And I put it by the back doors of my studio so that I could keep an eye on it (and him) as much as possible.

He had been neutered, so I wasn’t sure if he was someone’s lost cat or if someone found him, decided to have a stray cat neutered and then released him again. I checked local lost pet postings online to see if anyone had lost him, and I even posted about him online, but no one called. So after about a year, and as the weather started getting cold again last December, I started letting him come inside when the temperature got really cold. Well, he has now become our cat. He hasn’t made the full transition to being an indoor cat, but I really want him to. I’m just not quite sure how to make that final transition.

He has been quite the handful, though. He’s the biggest cat we’ve ever had, weighing in at 17 pounds. He’s big, heavy, and strong, weighing a full eight pounds more than Felicity, our other cat. And he loves to be the center of attention. If I’m working on a project, he’s in the middle of it.

Felicity has always been this way as well, but she’s a little more easy going.

If I’m working on a project, she’ll hang around as long as I let her, but once I need to shoo her away to finish up a project, she’ll stay away.

Tiger, on the other hand, is not so easy going. He’s always in the middle of my projects, and if I try to shoo him away, he comes right back. Again and again and again. So he’s a bit of a challenge, but he’s just so cute that it’s hard to get upset with him.

When he first started spending nights inside, I pulled out an extra comforter to make a bed for him on my studio countertop so that he could be up high enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about Cooper bothering him. He’s not very fond of Cooper at all, and he hisses and swats every time Cooper gets too close.

When he first started coming inside at night, I had just bought Felicity a new cat bed. This picture cracks me up. It’s like he’s plotting his takeover of Felicity’s new bed.

And now, his takeover of Felicity’s bed has been successful. Sadly, these cute little beds sold out before I could get another one, so now they fight over this one. But with an eight-pound advantage, Tiger wins every time. Don’t worry. Felicity has other beds.

So far, Tiger and Felicity have not gotten along all that great. It was a little stressful for the first few weeks, especially since they both want to be around me once I get into bed at night. Matt and I always get into bed around 10:00pm and then watch a show before going to sleep, and both cats want to be on my lap. Every night, they would fight over who gets to sleep on my legs. This was always Felicity’s nighttime routine, so with another cat added to the mix, I felt bad that Felicity would sometimes be chased away by Tiger.

But just over the last week or two, this has started happening. Felicity still gets her normal place on my legs, and Tiger snuggles up next to my leg, and for the most part, they get along just fine being this close to each other.

I’ve even caught them playing with each other a few times over the last couple of weeks, but it always seems to end with one of them getting upset, hissing and swatting at the other one. I really think they’ll eventually be friends. Felicity definitely wants to be friends with Tiger, but Tiger is the one who’s still a bit aggressive when Felicity gets too close or wants to sniff him a little too long for his comfort.

I’ve been absolutely amazed at how much food Tiger eats. We go through cat food so much faster now! We’ve always had pretty small cats, weighing in anywhere from six pounds to nine pounds, with Felicity being the biggest cat we’ve had until Tiger came along. And Tiger is the first male cat we’ve ever had. So I’ve been a little shocked at how much food a 17-pound male cat eats compared to the small female cats we’ve always had.

But the biggest challenge right now is that I really want Tiger to be an indoor cat for two reasons. First, I want to get rid of his sharp claws. I’m always a little on edge that he’s going to start clawing on the furniture. So far, he’s been great. I’ve never seen him even try to claw on the furniture, and he only uses the scratching post. But it still makes me nervous, especially now that he’s started sleeping on our new-ish recliner in our bedroom at night. So I really want to clip his claws so that they’re short and blunt so that he can’t do any damage, but as long as he still insists on going outside, he needs those claws for defense.

Also, every time he’s outside, I see him walking across the back yard with some sort of wildlife in his mouth — a bird, a lizard, a field mouse, etc. I don’t like that at all. He gets plenty of food inside, so there’s no reason for him to keep hunting and killing wildlife. Plus, he’s just safer inside. There’s zero chance of him getting hit by a car if he’s inside. There’s zero chance of him getting attacked by a stray dog if he’s inside.

But he continues to want to go outside during the day. If I don’t let him outside, he sits by the back doors and yells at me until I let him outside. But then around 7:00pm, he’s ready to come back inside and get settled for the evening.

So this is my biggest challenge right now. How do I make this cat, who was probably born in the woods, spent his first year outside, and is used to hunting for his food, want to stay inside? I made him stay inside for three days straight when we had a stretch of bad weather, and I thought maybe he had made that transition to being an indoor cat, but once the weather cleared up, he was ready to go back outside. I was pretty disappointed, but I feel guilty keeping him inside when he clearly wants to be outdoors.

If you have any tips or tricks on helping an outdoor cat make that full transition to being an indoor cat, I’d love to hear them. I really want him to stay inside where I know he’s safe, well fed, and well taken care of, and I really want to cut those sharp claws!

Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.