We live in big neighborhood with lots of families who own pets. Some of the cats are free to roam outside their homes so it is not at all unusual to see them out and about. A few weeks ago when Chris came home from work in the morning he called me outside to see a cat hiding underneath our car. He said he had seen it wandering around several times over the last couple weeks but assumed it was someone's pet out for a stroll. But once he got a good look at it up close, it was clear this kitty was a stray.
As you all know, we are both animal lovers to the core. When Chris said he wanted to try to catch and care for the cat my agreement came with no hesitation. If the cat was lost we wanted to find it's home and if not, we hoped to find it a new home. The cat was clearly starving, all skin and bones, and although clearly afraid it approached immediately when we brought out food. After being captured as gently as possible and put into a spare crate, we began mission nurse kitty back to health.
We discovered the beautiful little calico was a she and since it was warm, felt comfortable leaving her in the garage for the first few days. She received water and food and time to get used to being off the streets. We also had to protect our resident cats in case she had fleas or any type of sickness/transmittable disease. We posted pictures on our neighborhood website but received zero response after a week and it is a very active community where many a lost pet is reunited with its family. It was clear she wasn't missing from a home nearby or no one was claiming her. She definitely did not have fleas and was showing us more and more of her sweet and loving personality each day so we brought her inside. Of course she had to stay in the crate when unattended until we made a trip to the vet and to allow Piper and Little O to get to know her scent.
I knew at this point that not only were we going to find this little girl's home, if she ever had one, but she wasn't going to need to find a new one. She already had. Since it was a few weeks before Halloween and she's got those gorgeous haunting green eyes, we decided to name her Spooky and make her an official family member. A visit to the vet confirmed she's disease free and we got the all clear to introduce her to the rest of the crew. Today she is steadily gaining weight and strength and is so playful. The vet estimated her at about a year old but we will never really know her true age. The newest addition completely accepts Piper as the queen, O as her new nighttime romping buddy and all three dogs as teddy bears and is not afraid at all. She rubs up against Fallon, who in turn grabs her fur and tries to eat her, though she doesn't seem to mind, and snuggles with Chris or I when she's not busy exploring her new digs. We certainly did not plan on adding another furball to the mix but little Spooky literally showed up at our house and who were we to turn her away? Sometimes these things happen for a reason.
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