<p>Muffy, let your cats talk to my cats 
they can compare their CatSATs and gpas and decide who’s the smartest :D</p>
<p>I’ll have to post about my kitties sometime later today! They rule our house, for sure.</p>
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<p>I’ve had luck with that. Over the years, I’ve taken in a number of feral cats and kittens and kept them as indoor beasties. My last grouping of cats included two such cats. One of them was a polydactyl tomcat who saw me one day as I got home to my new townhouse and recognized me immediately as an easy mark for food and as much care as he could stand. Since it was winter, I started keeping him in at night when the weather was bitterly cold. Once he started marking up the place, I decided he needed neutering, and that was the beginning of his life indoors.</p>
<p>(I digress here, as the “marking” comment makes me remember something all good hostesses will want to guard against. I was having a casual afternoon get-together one hot summer day. Someone in the neighborhood had recently moved out, leaving their two cats behind. I was feeding one of them; someone else took in the other. My polydactyl cat was fine with the other two cats I had, but did NOT like other cats coming up to the door, hanging out around the porch, or being fed by his owner. He displayed his ire in a number of ways: hissing at the other cat, swatting me after I’d fed the other cat, stalking off and giving me a baleful look over his shoulder, and so on.</p>
<p>A friend and I went into the kitchen to get something. That particular friend hated cats. She would never hurt one; she simply hated them because she was so allergic to them. I noticed the stray cat was on my porch waiting for food; I asked V. whether she’d please feed the stray, because my big cat got so ticked off at me when I did it. She was a good friend, and though she was not enthusiastic about feeding the stray, she agreed to do it while I attended to some hostess chore or another.</p>
<p>She went out the door and plopped food down into the dish, walked back inside, washed her hands, and then went back into the great room where everyone was sitting and sat down.</p>
<p>Whereupon my polydactyl beastie walked up to her, looked up at her, turned around, and sprayed her, all over her bare legs. He’d had enough, and by golly, he was going to start Right Then marking HIS territory! She was a frequent enough visitor that he regarded her as HIS WOMAN, and that other cat apparently needed to know that.</p>
<p>This was years and years ago. I hope she has forgiven me by now.</p>
<p>This is also the cat who got up on the kitchen counter when I’d run to the store quickly for something and took exactly one bite out of EACH of the cupcakes I’d left cooling on the counter. Also the cat who … well, never mind; I’ve digressed quite enough!)</p>
<p>Another feral cat I had was one I got soon after the polydactyl beastie was neutered. I thought as long as I had one cat, I should go ahead and get another. I went to the shelter to look for a full-grown female companion, preferably solid grey, for him. While I was there, a small fluffy kitten sat in the back of her cage hissing and spitting at me every time I walked by. “Feral,” the shelter worker told me. “Not a good adoption candidate, unfortunately.” </p>
<p>A male orange tabby kitten, about 12 weeks old, was also there, and meowed and meowed and meowed at me, reaching his paw through the bars of his cage, imploring me to rescue him. So I filled out the papers to adopt him; he was a lovely cat, tall and elegantly marked, and he SO wanted to come home with me!</p>
<p>I called back two days later and asked the shelter to add that tiny, spitting, snarling, hissing, growling fluffball I’d seen in the back corner of her cage to the adoption papers. When I went to pick up the kittens, the feral one had to have a towel dropped on her and wrapped around her so she could be handled without shredding human flesh.</p>
<p>She grew into a green-eyed, long-haired beauty. People who saw her always remarked on what a pretty little cat she was, because she was an extremely pretty little cat. She retained a good bit of wildness, not liking to be picked up, yet liking to sleep in my lap or next to me, not liking people she didn’t know to approach her, yet greeting me at the door and liking to be petted. </p>
<p>The orange tabby cat grew up, too, into a hassock, or at least, that’s what he resembled when he plopped his 21-pound rotundness down and tucked in all his paws. He was a knucklehead, curious enough to come see what the other cats had knocked over, broken, gotten into, whatever, but not smart enough to scat as I approached. For a while, he got the blame for what one of the smarter cats had done; it took me a while to figure out he wasn’t the perp for these crash-worthy events.</p>
<p>One more feral beastie I picked up, a deaf white kitten, was hanging around my workplace; I worked at the time for a grocery chain, at headquarters, and the pet food buyers there always had cat and dog kibble available (ofttimes sitting on their desks, for snacks. For people.). I started feeding her, until she trusted me enough to let me get close enough to grab her. </p>
<p>Eighteen band-aids (for me), a couple of bloody towels (my blood), and a ride home (for the both of us) later, she crept behind a toilet and stayed there for three days, sneaking out only to eat, drink, or use a nearby litter box. After that, she warmed up to the environment, my cats, and eventually, me. I didn’t want a fourth cat, so she eventually went to a good indoor home already housing four other cats. She adjusted very well to life indoors and became a very affectionate pet.</p>
<p>(My current tuxedo cat is another feral-born beast of my acquaintance. He plays the coquette with my next door neighbor, but never gets close enough to the neighbor to be petted. But me? Me, he has to follow into the bathroom. Me, he has to see first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Me, he has to be near, whether immediately underfoot while I’m in the kitchen or peering into the toilet when I flush. He’s not at this time a completely indoor cat, however; he’s still a work-in-progress. As we all are, I suppose.)</p>
<p>We have one dog and two cats. My husband just cannot live without a couple of cats! If one is not around at bedtime, he goes and finds it! The dog is “left over” from our younger daughter, but we love him just the same!</p>
<p>I completely agree with several things said:
*Cats are much easier than dogs. When you want to leave town, it is much easier to find someone to come in and care for the cats than it is to find someone to take care of a dog (particularily if you are one who doesn’t want to board them at the local vet - which I don’t). Also, cats don’t require being taken outside several times a day.
*Having two cats is much better than one. Especially when you start out with two kittens, they are lifelong buddies and keep each other company.</p>
<p>We own a Maine Coon and a Persian. The Maine Coon is the first female pet we have ever had. She is huge - 18 lbs. I like that she talks to you in varied “voices”. You can stand there and carry on a “conversation” with her for several minutes (I am sounding very pathetic here - can you tell my last chid left for college last fall!). She also retrieves as ball like a dog as others have said of their Maine Coons. She will sit on your lap when SHE wants to, but not otherwise. She is also somewhat tempermental - related to her breed or her sex??</p>
<p>The Persian is a tabby male and absolutely the most affectionate pet we’ve ever had. He sashays around your legs, door frames, the other animals, etc. He sleeps on my chest or pillow and often comes up and lightly taps my face to wake me up in the morning. He will often jump up and curl up in my lap to sleep. He would love to cuddle up with the other cat or the dog, but they won’t have anything to do with it! It may be because he harassed them so much when he was a kitten. Hardly ever meows. Lovely, lovely cat.</p>
<p>All three pets follow us upstairs at night and all sleep in our room. I think that the personality of a pet is somewhat their breed and also how much attention they receive. If someone is around alot, they are held alot, talked to, they just are more affectionate creatures.</p>
<p>We also had four Himalayans in the past and they are beautiful, wonderful pets. My husband has mentioned Ragdolls and that might be our next cat!</p>
<p>Owlice, your story confirms to me the reason I will never adopt a feral cat, and certainly not an un-neutered male. Virtually nothing has more offensive staying power than the smell of male cat urine. If my kitten is a male, he will be neutered the moment it’s medically safe to do so.</p>
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<p>You haven’t smelled my husband…</p>
<p>(Kidding! I’m kidding!)</p>
<p>poetsheart, yeah, I wasn’t crazy about the spraying, believe me!! (Neither was my friend!!) I felt for a while that he wasn’t really my cat; I let him sleep indoors and then pitched him out every morning. Once he sprayed, though, I didn’t care whether he was feral, someone else’s, or whatever – I decided he needed to be fixed even if he wasn’t mine! So he got clipped.</p>
<p>Female cats can spray, too, though it’s rare that they do.</p>
<p>The other feral cats I’ve taken in haven’t been a problem, but they were much younger and were fixed early on.</p>
<p>I was nuts about the polydactyl cat, despite the need to expend funds on Nature’s Miracle. He was a tough guy with a marshmallow interior. When S was born, this old tomcat was just great with him. One of my fondest memories is of seven-month-old child propped up between my knees with his hands flopped out and big cat walking repeatedly under S’s hands, so that S was “petting” him. Oh, the laughter that came out of my baby that day! Such utter delight, and all the cat’s idea.</p>
<p>I have at least liked all my cats, but that tom… he was something special.</p>