What's your favorite adoption story?

When I tell people the story of how we met Regent, they always find it moving. That got me wondering what other interesting, untold stories may be out there.

One of my fav stories is my cat Jenny. Blind from birth and put in a box with her siblings on the side of a highway near NYC.  Found by a rescuer, taken to a shelter and adopted by us!  She is a super happy cat, and there is a little link to her public facebook page in my signature. :-)

Wow! Good to know she got a happy ending!

I first saw Purdy and her brother as kittens eating bread I put out for birds. I called a TNR vet who came out and trapped her and her brother and an old 9yr old tom. I paid to have them fixed, rabies shot, flea treatment. They were then released to my yard where I fed them and built them an all weather shelter. I gave them program liquid flea treatment and capstar flea treatments. Amoxicillin for eye infections in their food. The old tom Pinball (he had bent neck) and Purdy spent the long winter together in the shelter I made but they ran off her brother Milo who I never saw again. Eventually Miss Purdy came into the house to become my best friend. I continued to feed old man Pinball and his new buddy Simon for 5 years until they no longer showed up. By then pinball was about 14 years old.

Not mine, but someone I know---

They lived on a busy road so they didn't let their cats outside. One of their cats was a tortoiseshell named Gizmo. One day they saw a tortoiseshell cat outside their house. They said "Gizmo, what are you doing out here? Get inside!" and held the door open. She ran inside. It wasn't Gizmo :tongue2:. But the 2 cats were nearly identical. They kept the newcomer and had twin kitties .

@bonepicker  It's amazing how some cats can be content to do their thing while letting humans have a little participation in their lives. They are truly unique creatures.

@Willowy  that story is hilarious!!

Mine is my little Sarah Jane's story. Last October, we received a phone call from a friend, whose friend had heard a noise by her mailbox the night before, and discovered a very sick, nearly dead, weak, starving 5-week-old black kitten that had been dumped off to die. She tried to care for her, but wasn't sure how to do so--so she called DH's friend.  I was just coming down with a severe respiratory thing (which lasted 6 weeks), and was cat-napping on the sofa. I only remember hearing DH say, "There's a 5-week-old kitten that needs help, and might die if we don't take it. Can we take it?".  Two hours later, she was delivered to me through a rather circuitous route, and I instantly fell in love with her. Poor little thing--she was so very sick and weak, but I nursed her back to health, and, a year later, she's the most annoying, crazy, cute little thing--that has such a good life, with 2 loving people, and 9 other loving cat friends. Even non-cat people who meet her love her!

She was my little black cat gift--just in time for Halloween! (Halloween is my favorite holiday, and black cats are my favorite color of cat.)

She was spayed nearly 2 weeks ago. Here she is wearing her special ruff, and looking glum (poor baby!):



("You die TODAY, human. Prepare to meet your Maker.")

Aw she looks so angry there! So funny! It's amazing how emotional they get.

Regent University sits on a very lovely campus on the outskirts of Virginia Beach. The backside of campus is surrounded by a patch of empty trees. If you were looking for a place in the city to dump a cat, those trees would be a likely choice. So, one hot day in August, someone left a cat there. A purebred tabby Maine coon, neutered, microchipped, with shiny hair and everything. This cat had been a prize pet at one time. But something went wrong in his life, and the cat wound up alone in the trees by Regent University. Then while alone and scared, he came upon a dog or some other animal who tried to make a meal of him. Thanks to his massive long black hair, the attacker bit more hair than body, and he escaped with a gash in his skin.

Meanwhile, I had a crazy situation at my job, and I ended up randomly driving to the Regent campus in the middle of the day. One of my coworkers, Maryn, decided at the last minute to join me. We were not supposed to be there that day. We'd done everything we could to avoid leaving work and driving out there. But everything worked against us, and on August 15, there we were being compelled to make the trip.

Maryn is a huge animal lover. As we get on the quiet little side road to approach the campus, she spots a raccoon-ish animal sitting near the road. She points it out to me. I'm worried about getting our work mission done, so I don't pay much attention. But half an hour later, we achieve our mission and turn to drive back to the office. When we go back down the road, we see the same animal, in the same spot, clearly watching our car. Maryn asks to stop, just to check things out. As soon as the car stops, the cat runs up to us and practically climbs inside the car. He is dirty, covered in spit, drooling from the mouth, glassy eyed, panting like crazy, and meowing in a hoarse, weak voice. It's over 90 degrees outside that day (over 32 celsius), and a cat with long black hair had been left to fend for himself. Maryn picks him up. He hugs her so hard he leaves marks on her neck. 

We take him to a nearby grocery store and score some free tap water. But he's so delusional that he doesn't even know what water is. He's shedding like crazy, panting nonstop, grabbing Maryn for dear life. We turn the air on high to cool him. It becomes apparent that we can't calm him. As luck (or perhaps the divine) would have it, there's an urgent care animal clinic one block away. At first they think I'm scamming for free vet care and ask me to pay. I agree to pay for a basic look-over. They have to make the cat lay down on ice packs to cool him. He's been left so recently that you can still see the circle in his hair from a collar. We stay with him for a few minutes, telling the story, explaining that we must return to our job and we cannot take him with us. The vet decides not to charge any money. They say they'll keep him steady and give him to animal control in the morning.

Over the next several days, we can't get the cat out of our minds. We refer to him as "the Regent cat" and that becomes shortened to his name is Regent. The vet says his body temperature was so high it was near brain damage territory. If we hadn't picked him up, he'd have had died that day. Curiosity nags us, so we call the shelter and ask if they ever found his home. No one ever came for him. For two weeks, they keep him locked away, working on the microchip to find his family. He's been abandoned.

The experience traumatized him, and he also shows signs of having been abused. He is very much afraid of loud voices, feet, and smacks to the face. He panics around other animals. We stop by the shelter to see him one Saturday. He's quarantined in the back of the building, hiding in a cage, too scared to be in public. When Maryn and I enter the room, he remembers us, and he perks up. The shelter worker says he hasn't responded that well to other people, and if he doesn't get better, they might put him down.

DH went with us that day. Regent prances and kisses us and shows off his handsomeness to DH. He steals our hearts all over again. DH looks at the crummy cage he won't leave, the shelter worker talking about how they can't adopt him, and DH knows he won't survive without us. We have no pets, don't even know our landlord's policy on pets, had no intention to get a cat. But DH feels haunted that Regent will die without us. We pray twice that we need a sign if we should do it. Both times, we're given a very clear sign in less than an hour.

September 14, one day short of exactly one month since we found him, Regent came home with us.