How did you meet your little fuzzbutt(s)

[AbbysMom]

A friend of ours was driving down a country road when he spied a cardboard box on the side.  He stopped to check it out.  Inside he found one little black kitty sitting and staring at him.  Beside the little kitty was a dead mother and three dead siblings.  Our friend, Dennis, scooped up the survivor and brought it home.  I was in the bedroom and I heard Dennis say to my husband, "Here.  This is for Jody".  I figured it was a piece of mail from the box out front.  To my utter surprise, my husband came in holding in one hand a tiny mewling ball of black fur.  My first thoughts were that he wouldn't make it.  He appeared to be about four weeks old.  But he learned how to eat and used the litterbox right away.  He was a very smart kitty.  We named him Malachi James (James after my husband's name).  We took him to the vet for shots, had him dewormed, DNA tested (he is a Bombay cat) and he had his "big boy" surgery.  He has made three moves with us.  He is now eleven years old, never been sick, and weighs about twelve pounds.  He is so special.  Our friend Dennis saved him from certain death.  And that's how we came by our little fuzzbutt!

Oh the poor thing. Like jcat, I just can't imagine who could do something like that.


My story is fairly boring. We lost Molly while in the middle of selling our house and moving here. I needed some time to grieve and didn't feel it would be fair to adopt a cat and then move within a few weeks. We also had a week and a half vacation abroad a few days after the move. Once we got back, there were boxes everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. We decided it would be best to wait until we were fully unpacked to adopt. I couldn't hold out that long. Within a few weeks I was on Pet Finder. We narrowed it down to a few cats and went to one of the local shelters. When we walked up to the window of the cat room. Abby was right in the window sleeping. She immediately got up, stretched and looked at us. After visiting with her. WE decided she was the one. :heart2:

She learned to live with the boxes for a bit. :lol3: I think she was disappointed when things were finally straight.

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• AbbysMom
• Feb 22, 2014

 

[dragonheart]

I had been thinking about adopting again for awhile. My mom saw a cat in the paper (local shelter spotlight) and we decided to go take a look at him. Naturally on the way to look we detoured into the kitten room to play with them. I love playing with the kittens but I don't ever adopt them. XD But here in this room filled with kittens was a lone adult male, napping on one of the cat trees. We talked to one of the ladies at the shelter and she told us his story. His family surrendered him when they couldn't afford to pay for his dental surgery. The shelter had it done--full extraction, not a single tooth left in his mouth. He'd been languishing in the shelter for over a year at this point and I suppose they put them in with the kittens to get some interest. He was 8 years old and had some medical issues, making him unadoptable to most potential owners.

Well, I looked at him and he looked at me and I said to my mom hey, let's give him a chance. He got up, jumped down from the tree and actually managed to slip out of the kitten room and into the main cat shelter area, where he sat by the door patiently waiting for us to come take him home. So we did. The very first thing he did upon reaching the house was to walk into the middle of my office floor, roll onto his back and just stretch out, wagging his big fluffy tail in a happy circle.

That was how I got Connor.

 

[rachelinaz]

My oldest three (14 years ago) I was talking to my banker in Alaska. She mentioned "her" cat lived in a feral colony.
Several litters by several momma cats had been born and she was getting rid of them.
The barn/detatched garage was going to be taken down and they were trying to find homes. My sister and I took 3 of the 4 siblings. I wish we took #4 but I think a home had been found.
Max, MsMilo an PepperAnne had life long home from appx 5 weeks old (minus maybe a week... kittens could eat wet and knew how to use the potty. They cleaned themselves and each other. We were blessed they all turned out to be very sweet cats who adored children (my 3 nephews and my oldest son).

We lost Max- soneone let him out the day we moved in and Milo due to health issues. We are about to lose PepperAnne due to health and I assume old age.


Fast Forward 14 years:
I put an ad into Craigslist. A month or more later I got a text for bio sisters. Fostermom wanted two puppies... doberman and a great dane. Plus she wanted some bird, a monster lizard and some snakes. She wanted the kittens gone. NOW. She was freaking out if we were showing up.

WHILE driving north for Elsie and Ana... I get a call from a foster dad about a kitten who was hand raised from before her eyes were open.
He is before Ana and Elsie... so we go there. Now mind you we drove for over an hour to get in the area. Elsie and Ana's foster mom is texting me every 5 minutes... irritating me. We picked up the girls and wah-la! Mew is appx 1.5 to 2 weeks older than Ana and Elsie.

Now another month to a month and a half pass and I get a text am I still looking for kittens.
If I couldn't take this little man who was barely 3 weeks old, she would have to take him to a kill shelter. (HER DH wasn't fond of him and they had a house of reptiles)
THAT IS NOT GOING TO FLY! So dh, the kids take off to meet whom we now know as Wally!

So we have the teenagers and Wallypops. We love them all for various reasons. Wouldn't trade a one!

 

[dohdeelicious]

I love all these stories. There is a loving quality about "animal people" that I never experience with those who do not share their lives with at least one furry being. Kudos to each of you for opening heart & home to an animal (or many!) in need of love.

Yep, so I spent my life with dogs. Fairly big dogs (50#+). No cats. Please no cats.

Shortly after relocating from Southern California to the Midwest, my life as I knew it ended abruptly and in toto. Despite making every right choice, I spent my days seeking numbness and wondering if today would be the day I'd drown myself in my bathtub.

One day I went to the shelter for a senior dog and came home with a cat. He was very affectionate, was a joy to watch play, handsome, and had been there far too long.

On the way home, I loaded up with every imaginable everything a cat could want - litterboxes, toys, scratching post, cat tree/condo, cushioned window seat... You name it. Oh, and a Vet appointment for a couple days hence.

He is the love of my life and I shower him with love and look after his well-being accordingly. He is sweet, loving, shy with strangers, a little skittish at times and very affectionate. I love watching him sleep... The way he drapes his leg over his face to cover his eyes.

If it weren't for Clapton, I don't know that I'd have made it through that spring with a shred of sanity or hope.

A few months ago, during my shift at local trap & release rescue I met this needy, adorable white, brown, and orange little girl. She climbed all over me when I took her out of her cage and I was smitten. Turns out she's hysterical.

I worried for a few seconds about turning into The Crazy Cat Lady....but the girls at rescue laughed at me. At 2 cats, my home would be nothing compared to the number of cats they each had!

She holds my hand, lets me stroke the pads of her feet and rub her belly. She's very talkative, especially when hungry. She thinks I'm her personal cat tree. I laugh out loud when she sprawls across my thigh and drops her head over my knee...

Cat love is sooooo different than doggie love. I like it. :-)

 

[lucentstreak]

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• lucentstreak
• Jun 15, 2014

Hugo or "Seven" - the second time I met him and the "moment"

I never had cats before and it took me about 30 years before I realized that my mom lied to me as a child that I was allergic to both cats and dogs. I had just moved halfway across the globe for work and building up a social life was not easy. By chance, a friend of mine asked if I would cat sit her two kittens while she was away and despite never having done so, I followed up to help up. After my friend returned, I did somehow briefly mentioned how nice it was to have cats for company. And at the same time, another friend was fostering yet another kitten which I visited.


My first friend quickly followed up by checking with the lady who fostered her two kittens and told me that coincidentally had one kitten up for adoption despite it not being kitten season. I thought I would drop by and have a look since it was round the corner from my office. Turns out that this foster mother was fostering a small male ginger kitten (what I was interested in) called "Seven" and there was another girl waiting in line for him. I kept to myself and thought I would pursue it only if the other girl backs off and in the meantime, keep an eye out for others. "Seven" was found when he roughly two months old in a drain, howling his guts out and no other information was given to me. The foster mother thought he was a domestic cat rather than feral given his stripes, tail and ears which I might agree with now.

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• lucentstreak
• Jun 15, 2014

I didn't find any other kitten and by the second meeting with "Seven" and after a play session, he had somehow crawled onto my pullover, nestled himself among it and fallen asleep for a short while. That was the moment.

Anyhow, it took several more visits - each with me trying to be cautious that "Seven" might just go home with someone else before the other girl decided to adopt other kittens. Since then, "Seven" became Hugo and he has been part of my daily life - teaching me that it is ok to be still and quiet. At times, being a little bit of a tool as well.

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• lucentstreak
• Jun 15, 2014

 

[pinkdagger]

^ 30 years!? You look so young, lol.

My boyfriend's ex actually picked Mo out for him as a gift, so he met him the day he went to pick him up.

I originally inquired with a rescue about a smoke coloured family, but said whoever's in direst need of a home, I'll visit with them. They directed me downtown to a family that was losing their foster home, a little family of black cats, the kittens just over 1 year old at that point. Her siblings were bounding all over us to play while Kismet hid under a dresser peering out intermittently. She was shy and scared, but would sometimes lose herself in play before she realized how exposed she was and run back. Super nervous, but very playful. She seemed the most even tempered of the family, since her mom would just watch from afar, her brother and sister would be clamouring all over to bite and scratch for a toy (non stop), and her other brother never even came out to see who or what we were. We loaded her into our carrier, filled out the forms, and hopped in the car with her (getting lost and having to go all the way to the lakefront before finding the highway to go back in the opposite direction).

I don't think foster home visits are supposed to take that long, but we were there for almost two hours trying to get to know Kismet. We joke that I picked a cat like me - scared of the world, teeny tiny quiet voice, and kind of a grump (ie. not wanting to play with Mo).

I have yet to serendipitously meet and bring home a stray animal, but aside from the vet bills, it always sounds like such a fairytale.