Update
The weirdest thing happened today. We met Larry's original family. Story below.
Larry was awarded to us about 9 (actually 11 months) months ago. We recently hired a mobile detailer for my husband's work truck and the appointment was today. The guy brought his wife and she took one look at Larry and said that's my cat!
So, get this: his person in their family was their young son, who's name is LARRY!!
Larry (cat) was part of a feral family that she adopted; she still has an uncle and a sister of his. Larry had been missing for 6 + months when he came to us. She had stopped looking for him because her nasty neighbor all but admitted to dumping him up by the freeway while the family was on vacation.
She has pictures of him as a kitten and young adult. He's around 6 years old. She doesn't want to take him back (thank God), she's bringing me his records this afternoon and was crying with joy knowing he found such a good home. His name was Puss in Boots because his eyes reminded them of the Disney character.
My husband and I just look at each other in wonder as to this mornings events. I mean, what are the odds??
She said she has gained good weight and stature and all of his quirks are the same here as they were there. We found out how his toe was broken (caught in netting) and why it feels like he has BB's under his skin. They are BBs from the nasty neighbor. Larry's sister was hit in the face and got a huge abscess so she was dealing with that and Larry just has a little hitch in his giddyaup from the encounter.
Most rural places want you to trap the feral kitties using a live trap cage and then take them to an animal shelter, or contact animal control to do it.
Shooting cats with a BB gun is cruelty and nothing else.
If you ever meet up with the original owners again, tell them to snitch to the police. They only have so much time they can charge it. Maybe even mention you feel unsafe around said neighbor…
I prosecuted my own dog’s animal abuse case unknowingly. One of my biggest flexes and I’m so glad this kitty has the home the little guy deserves ❤️
My bobtailed cat has a BB under her skin. She was a wild child, until after we brought in one of her kittens and then she decided it might be okay to come in. She's about 15 now and fights with her daughter when she gets too close. That's gratitude for you 😄
I’m glad she recognizes you’re better with and for him, it’s hard to say that because he sounds like he was really loved by them. Aside from their shitty neighbor.
We had an orange kitty when I was a toddler, he somehow slipped out one day and the guy down the road did something horrible to him. Because his sister doesn’t like cats. Abhorrent behavior, but also she needs to get law enforcement involved and tell them her neighbor is shooting her cats with bbs and being abusive. Like wtf…? Sorry, getting angrier thinking about it.
I’m glad you love him and are a safe home for him.
That relief she felt must have been huge! I lost a cat many years ago, and I always hoped she’d found a safe place to live. If I ever found out she was ok and had a nice home it’d make my year just to know
It truly was. The strange route he took to get to us and then this? These folks are super nice and good people. They have kids the same age as my grandkids, and my daughter just closed on a home in their neighborhood, which is miles from the apartment building where he was found. We are all excited to meet up and become friends. I am just FLOORED.
I always thought the CDS was just a fanciful way to pick up stray or dumped cats. I am not so sure now, the coincidences involved over most of a year are just too weird to explain away. 🤯
Not quite as wild a coincidence as yours, but still cool...
Two of my cats are a pair of bottle baby twins. They were the only survivors of a litter of 5 and due to their incredibly traumatic birth, their mother rejected them. A kind lady who worked at the local SPCA was the unfortunate finder of the traumatic birth situation in one of the "mother" rooms at the shelter. Her quick thinking saved their lives. Two years later we adopted another kitten and she was the person who did the adoption process with us so we heard all about the whole situation. Poor woman was still haunted. Fast forward to a couple months ago and our twins now 5yo (and the newer kitten, now 3yo) were getting their annual checkup and shots at our vets. They were squirmy so a helper was called in to hold them...it was the SPCA lady! She works at our vets now. She was delighted to see all of them so happy and healthy (and big!). 😃 I hope she holds that memory now instead of the original one and it helps her heal.
I hope she does! And I'm so glad Larry's first human knows how safe and loved he is now, with you. That is such a beautiful ending for her story with him.
Absolutely bonkers!! I just pulled that name out of thin air. Then around Halloween (a month into our distribution) I started calling him "Scary Larry" hahah
She just cracked up at that because they also call their son that sometimes. I am just in awe.
The story of our Big Man and Foofy is similar! They used to live down the street from us and wandered over here in February. We had no idea what their story was at the time.
Once the weather was warm, their original owner and her daughters were walking by and saw them. She was so happy to see them safe and happy! My dad told her that they were her cats so she could take them back if she wanted, but we’d gotten quite attached. She said no, they’re happy at our house and they can stay. So happy! They’re characters 😆
So tell us what their reunion was like? Even though Larry is staying with you, are they going to bring Larry to visit with Larry? Did Larry recognize the woman and react like we all hope he would have?
Unfortunately, I was still in bed at 7 am when they arrived. After about 10 minutes my husband came in all breathless, "get dressed and come outside, you aren't going to believe this!"
She is bringing kid Larry to say hi to cat Larry later on today. He let her pet him that I saw, but he immediately went to my husband and started marking his legs with his whole body. LOL.
Kid Larry and his mom came by yesterday. We exchanged goodies from our gardens. She got lemon cucumbers and home grown cat nip and I got homegrown grapes! Yum!
Larry (cat) was lounging under my car in the shade and kid Larry wiggled under there to pet him. I called Larry (cat) out and again, he was indifferent to his previous family. I felt sad for them about that. Little boy Larry got emotional and his mom was so gentle with him and I was allowed to give him a hug and thank him for letting me keep his cat. It was a good visit, and I have made a new (human) friend.
That's kinda sad that Larry (cat) wasn't excited to see his previous family. But I bet to him that they are interconnected with all of the bad things that happened to him when he was with them. Was Larry (kid) emotional because Larry (cat) wasn't excited, or because it was so great to know that his kitty was alive and well in a new home?
I think a little of both. His mom explained that Larry (cat) has bonded with my husband now. He is definitely a dude cat. :) She sent me vids of their other cats enjoying the catnip gifts. Hilarious!
My parents were in the position of Larry's former humans once. They each brought a cat into the marriage, and after countless caterwauls and late-night fights, one of the cats decided to re-home herself. My dad found out some months later that Cinder had joined a family up the street. Their young daughters absolutely loved her, and vice versa. It was nice to have closure and know - rather than hope - that Cinder had found a great place to continue her life.
I’ve had a cat rehome himself out of my house - with my blessing, I may add.
What happened was this: we lived next to a young couple with a baby on the way and two cats. They seemed perfectly lovely. The husband was a real family man … as it turned out, a bit too much of a family man.
One day there was a moving van out front and the next the wife was gone, taking one cat with her. I later learned that the wife found out her husband had a woman on the side, who was also pregnant; the other woman phoned her. So she left his ass as fast as humanly possible.
That left this fellow and a cat. Soon he moved out as well, but let his friends live there; he left the cat. His friends were unpleasant people who refused to care for the cat.
First I knew about it was the poor cat, whom we called “Sylvester”, was crying outside their door. It was late fall and cold. They weren’t letting him in or feeding him. So we took him in.
We had a cat as well, a young female, and the two cats got along fine. So all winter he lived with us. Only thing was, he was always uneasy about living in our place - I guess that he really didn’t like living with our cat (although they never fought and seemed to get along fine).
Next spring, when we let him out, he made a whole campaign of attempting to get into the house of the people living across the street. They were cat owners whose cat had passed away from old age; Sylvester sensed this, and figured he’d be an only cat if he lived with them! They came to us and asked if it was okay to take him in; we said that was fine - he would be happier there, and though we put him up for a season, that was more out of necessity than because we wanted two cats. So he switched houses again, and lived a long happy life there.
Thank you for giving "Sylvester" a temporary home until he found his better permanent home! That poor baby, I couldn't abandon my babies like that. I'd be so heartbroken!
He was a very bright cat! It was funny to see how he basically laid siege to their house; he sat on their porch, pestered them every chance he got. He just seemed to know.
the CDS is definitely something else! they wanted both families to become friends. i'm glad you got to keep him & i can just imagine the relief they felt that he was ok
The first thing out of my mouth after my husbands brief explanation was, "do they want him back?" 😭. I would have, of course, but I would be heartbroken.
We had a really sweet long-haired gray floof with bad eyesight. This was back in the day when every cat was indoor/outdoor. One night the floof didn't come home. We searched, called animal control and the local vets, put up lost posters, and even called the borough road crew in case she'd been scraped up off the street. A few years later while selling girl scout cookies we found the kitty four houses down living with an elderly neighbor.
We later found out that the lady had known the kitty was ours but for unknown reasons decided we were mistreating the kitty so she brought her in and kept her.
The elderly lady had been taking care of her husband who had struggled with dementia for a few years and had recently died. Our family huddled together and decided that we wouldn't press our claim since she was a recent widow and had no kids, but we let her know that we knew she was a cat-napper, lol!
Old ladies will justify the strangest things for love and companionship. 😊 She was wrong to keep your cat because she was overwhelmed and lonely. It was lovely of your family to let her keep it.
She really did. Gave me a huge mamma bear hug (she's the age of my daughter) and teared up while talking about him and how glad she is that he landed somewhere safe and loved.
Wow, I’m so happy for everybody in this story—except the evil neighbor.
We had a cat, Vashti, that we adopted
from a rescue org. We knew her old name and that she was from the Bronx, and that her brother had become a therapy cat. About seven years later, an acquaintance posted pix of her therapy cat on Facebook and mentioned where he’d been adopted from. Yup, it was Vashti’s brother! We confirmed via their adoption paperwork and we even had them meet up in real life! But we never knew what their pre-adoption life was really like.
They were wary at first, but did a lot of sniffing and then sat near each other. The girl cat immediately swiped at him to establish dominance! Bossy big sister, lol.
Our Floyd has 4 BBs under his skin. He was living rough before we adopted him, but he’s very well loved now. Named him after Pretty Boy Floyd, because he’s a gangster.
did you heart just drop to your stomach when she said “that’s my cat”?
she’s good people realizing he’s safer with you
your good people for taking him in
and the neighbor sucks for being who they are
I’ve said my peace
It did. I would have given him back, obviously, but would have been heartbroken. She is a wonderful woman and we found that we have so much in common, it's weird.
Oh wow, the neighbor is a fucking dick. I would be doing so many nasty things back; dog shit on the porch and in the yard, trowing random piles of fresh manure from the garden on the yard ever summer by the fence, just enough where I can say, must have fallen through the fence. Making sure my sprinkler was on to water my yard and hitting his car JUST enough in his drive way to make it seem like an accident. I would phone the city and give them a heads up that he's got a record of mistreating animals so if they find one, they go to him first and foremost. That's the important one, because without a record of it, they can't really peg him for a suspect. Let the city and people know he's cruel to animals and has decidedly shot at them with a BB gun, which could go up a step farther with his crazy-self. If a person is willing to shoot an animal for no reason other than out of some inconvenience, it's not too long before a neighbor gets it too.
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