so first of all, our cat (khaleesi) is almost always inside. she’s a very lazy cat who doesn’t really like going outside much anyways, lol. when she does go outside, she never goes off our property: one, our backyard is surrounded by fences, and the back is pretty much blocked off due to the very high retaining walls (we live on a house on a hill). two, she can’t escape due to her back legs being deformed (she’s missing a lot of toe beans and claws; was born like that). three, whenever she is outside, we always make sure to supervise her.

the neighbor’s cat (harry) on the other hand, is always outside (very illegal in australia!!) and always on our property. even before we moved here, the previous owners of the house mentioned that the cat is always hanging around. this wasn’t a problem for them as they only had 2 dogs, and the cat is friendly with dogs (i assume this is due to the fact that the neighbor also has a pet dog, who is consantly left outside in their neglected backyard. but that’s another topic). he’s always sleeping either on the retaining walls, by our walls, or on the seat we put outside. we try to shoo him off back home, but he always comes back. he’s thankfully been desexed and whatnot because he used to belong to the neighbor’s ex, but when they broke up she left her pets with him because she was unable to take care of them by herself. but he’s starving (you can literally see his ribs and how thin he is ;-;) and always coming around begging for food.

khaleesi has always been extremely wary around other cats. we rescued her from an abusive situation where she was locked inside of a trailer and kicked around as a kitten, and we suspect she was taken away from her mother way too early. before we moved, we had two other cats, which she did not get along with. (no vicious fights and no blood drawn, but extremely vocal and made the other cats very anxious. one of the other cats would also instigate, though…) we made attempts to get them to get along, but the best thing we could do was just keep them separated.

since we’ve moved and she’s been the only cat in the house, she’s been a lot more comfortable. but harry, obviously, makes her extremely uncomfortable. he’s attacked/chased her a few times now; once we had to take her to the vet because he took a piece out of her ear (thankfully missed anything vital). we’ve confronted the neighbor on multiple occasions with how harry is constantly banging on the doors and meowing and bothering our cat, especially when he attacked her, and we’ve told him to do something about it. when we took our cat to the vet, we gave the neighbor an ultimatum: find a home for his cat, or pay for our vet bill (hoping that he would choose the former). he chose to pay for our vet bill (appreciated in the short term, but not the long term).

it’s sad because harry is a very affectionate cat, very cute, very loving. it breaks our heart to see him constantly at our door begging for food. my mom keeps giving in and giving him the leftover cat food khaleesi doesn’t eat because… we can’t bear the thought of denying help to a cat and leaving him to starve. if he and khaleesi got along, we would 100% take him in, no second thought. but i don’t know how we could get them to get along, i think it would literally take a miracle. we want to rehome him, but we don’t know anyone. i’ve been trying to get my mom to post him on facebook and ask if anyone would want to take him in (since we don’t know anyone ourselves), but she’s hesitant. as you all would probably know, shelters are full, and they would probably put him down if they can’t immediately find him a home, and we don’t want that to happen :[

sorry for the long post. i just don’t know what to do. i want khaleesi to be comfortable and safe, but i also want to find a good home for this sweet, neglected cat.