The Melbourne Street Cat Program aims to tackle the street cat problem in Melbourne head on by socialising, vet working and rehoming street cats. Unfortunately street cats often fall through the gaps. Pounds are unable to provide an environment suitable for socialisation, and due to the skill set and time taken to work with street cats, many rescues are also unable to facilitate them. It is for this reason we have decided to try and fill this void. The program originated out of need. There was a local colony and unfortunately no rescues were able to assist in working with the colony feeders to bring the cats in for vet work and rehome them. This particular colony was slowly vet worked by individual people however it highlighted a major gap in the current system. The majority of street cats can be socialised and adopted into new homes, however it isn’t easy and it takes a lot of time. The actions of street cats is ruled by fear, not necessarily anger. They generally won’t hiss or swipe you unless you get too close to them and they feel they have to defend themselves. In order to work on socialisation it is first essential that you build a relationship based on trust with the individual cat or kitten. This in itself takes time, how long depends on the previous life experiences, often which we don’t know. Once the trust relationship has been built, we can now start to work on introducing them to normal life, litter training, food, pats and hopefully eventually all forms of affection. Each step of the process takes time, and there are often many steps backwards as we learn different triggers that may upset them. Adopting a street cat can be the most rewarding process as well. Not only have you helped to save the life of a cat from the streets, but they always seem to remember what their life was like, compared to what it is now like, and are forever grateful for this. Just as the foster carers before you, you will need to learn to build a trusting relationship with your new family member and show them that you only mean love not fear or pain. Once this relationship is established, you will learn the amazing gift of being loved by a street cat. Thank you for taking this journey with us. We would be unable to save even a single cat if it wasn’t for our wonderful foster carers, vets, adopters and everyone else in the process.