5 or 6 years ago, my wife got two kittens, a black shorthair our kids named Blackie and her sister, a gray tabby they named Bounce. They were indoor kittens, but once they got older, they became indoor/outdoor cats. Because we were lousy cat owners, they each had several litters, a few of which we were able to find homes for, but most of which we took to the Humane Society. We also finally took Bounce there. :blush:
When things finally settled out a couple of years ago, we still had Blackie and two of her kittens, a black female named Trouble and a gray and white male named Pipsqueak. All three of them have been spayed/neutered and have their shots. They are all indoor/outdoor cats.
A couple of years ago, one of our neighbors moved and left behind their black and white male cat named Cowboy (because they "couldn't catch him"), who is a big, muscular cat who is more than willing to get into a fight with just about anything that crosses him. He started showing up at our back door, dirty, scrawny, and sometimes all scratched up. We fed and watered him pretty regularly, but he would never come inside or let anyone get near him. As time went on, he gradually would let my wife get closer and finally pet him and even pick him up and bring him inside. He is one of the biggest house cats I have ever seen. Several months ago, he disappeared for a while, and when he showed up again, he had a huge infected wound and an abscess almost the size of a golf ball on the side of his head, plus various other scrapes and cuts. After several days and several attempts, my wife was able to catch him in a bath towel (to keep from getting scratched and bitten) and put him in our cat carrier to take him to the vet. After surgery, antibiotics, a cage to keep him in outside, neutering, and $400+ later, my wife spent a couple of weeks flushing his wound with saline, giving him oral antibiotics, and taking care of the drain tube on the side of his head until he was all healed up. We're sure he would have died from the infection if she hadn't done anything.
To make a long story short (too late! much too late!), we now have 4 indoor/outdoor cats. Cowboy doesn't get along with the other 3, but they usually just try to avoid each other except for the occasional growl here and there and the fairly rare screaming catfight in our kitchen, usually in the middle of the night.
Also, roughly around the time that Cowboy started hanging around our back door, another cat, a big dark smoky-gray male that our kids have named Tobacco, also started hanging around outside. We now feed him pretty regularly, and he comes inside to eat sometimes. If we let him come inside, he will plant himself in front of the cat feeder and eat until we shoo him back outside, though there have been days when we forget that he's there and my wife will come home to find him sunning himself on a window sill like he owns the place. :shock:
So we have 4-1/2 housecats these days. I never thought I liked cats, dogs, or any other mammalian pets, but it is nice to have Cowboy come up to me and push his head into my hand so I'll rub/scratch/pet him. He also will sit in the chair next to me when I'm on the computer. So yeah, I like him and our other cats. More than I'll admit.
Now if I can just get somebody else to change the litter boxes!
