For me, growing up in Connecticut on almost 2 acres of woods and water (a small pond and the little stream that fed it and some neighbor's ponds as well), I was used to seeing both cats and dogs roaming free in our neighborhood. Then one day, my sister Martha brought home a kitten and insisted we adopt it! Mother deferred that decision until Dad had come home from his work in NYC (which he commuted to via train). Dad took one look at it, said "well, if it isn't Sam", and the decision had clearly been made.
It turned out that Sam was a "Samantha" and after she'd grown up, she had her (one and only) litter of kittens, and us kids got to watch them being born, one by one! We proceeded to get them all adopted, except for a tuxedo which we kept and named “Rudy”. I don’t recall how long we had Sam & Rudy, but Sam went first due to old age. Rudy, like most tuxedos, had grown up to become a gentle giant and very friendly.
Then one morning I found Rudy hiding under my VW Bug and crying in pain. I could see his neck was torn to pieces (probably by a not-so-friendly Raccoon), and Martha & I lost no time in coaxing him out and getting him to the local vet. After examining poor Rudy’s injuries with us watching anxiously, he said that he could operate, but that would be both expensive and unlikely to succeed since Rudy’s wounds had become seriously infected. He explained that Rudy’s wounds were not recent and that, like most cats, Rudy had probably sought solitude hoping he would get better, but had only gotten worse.
Martha and I discussed it, but ended up agreeing with the vet to let Rudy go. The last thing I remember was our Gentle Giant purring loudly as soon as he'd gotten that final injection. Of course, Martha and I were in tears at this point, but were grateful that Rudy had not died in pain.
Rudy checks out an Easter basket in our back yard, while Martha looks on with her basket, 1965.
The last "feral" cat KC & I coaxed inside our house together was Frida, and that was in the spring of 2022. She appeared in our front yard one day, just a little kitten, but with a very big personality.
There were a bunch of feral cats who'd been hanging around our front yard, and the brave (or desperate enough) ones were quick to take advantage of the food, water, and especially the heat pads in and/or under various sheltered areas, pet beds, and even a large dog house (which had never housed dogs) inside our 6' fenced and gated area. Well, just as long as I didn't get too close to them: 10-12 feet seemed to be ok, as long as I didn't look directly at them or gave them the slow eye-blink message of "See, I'm not going to eat you! I'm not a threat!".
Some of these ferals were quite large, and I'd named two largest "Big Boy 1 & 2". I saw they had already been ear-tipped, hence fixed, but had no way of telling whether or not they were males. That's where this newcomer kitten's personality first asserted itself, for rather than keeping clear of these older and bigger ferals, she'd stare them down! More than once I even saw her feint a charge at the Big Boys! Not that she moved more than an inch or so, but her feint was so sudden and convincing that both Big Boys would literally flinch, recoil, and hasten to put more distance between them and this tiny terror!
In honor of this machismo, we named her "Alfred, King of Wessex"! We'd been watching that wonderful miniseries The Last Kingdom. But when we took her in for a checkout with our vet, we found out that he was, in fact, a she, and had already been fixed (even though she'd never been ear-tipped).
Long story short, here she is now, striking a "How you like me now?" pose at the entrance to our Meditation & Morning Prayers room.
