Collaring a cat that isn't mine?
Tl;dr: there's a cat in my neighborhood that I feel isn't being taken care of, but they technically belong to another family. Should I put a flea collar on him?
So one of my neighbors has a cat that my husband & have started calling Roger. We feed all of the stray/community cats, and Roger is one of our regulars.
He's outside nearly 24/7, and his owners do not have any sort of outside-cat provisions to make sure he is safe. No covered food bowl, no outdoor shelter, no reflective collar, nothing. They're gone frequently and leave him crying on their porch, even during poor weather.
He hangs out at our house a lot because we take care of him as best we can. He's cross-eyed, and I can tell it affects his vision (he has trouble finding food even in front of him). Since spring, he's had these awful hot spots on his head from flea bites and sunburn, scabs and flea dirt all over him, ticks, and last night he even came to me with a bloody chin.
Also a note, Roger DOES NOT WANT to be an outside cat. He sits on his owners porch crying at the door most of the day, and he frequently comes to our door and cries to be let in as well. We haven't wanted to risk our indoor cat catching fleas/ticks, so he hasn't come in to our home yet.
This neighbor has mistreated animals before, as they had 3 puppies removed from their care because they also left them outside 24/7. The dogs were hardly fed and never trained, so they would frequently chase people up and down our street. They weren't fixed either, and could be aggressive at times.
Now on to now, we have a flea collar for Roger. It's the least we can do for now, and our hope is that once fleas aren't a worry, we can start letting him into our house and (hopefully!) bring him into our family, if he chooses.
Should we just collar him and not say anything, or text something to the owners? We don't have a good relationship with them, not hostile but certainly not friendly because we tried to take Roger to our city's animal services before we knew he was theirs. We immediately brought him back once we found out, and gave them a cat toy & food with an apology note. They also hit one of our cars and tried to pressure us to not file a police report, so overall not a great relationship there.