My daughter, who is off in her own apartment now, got a call from a neighbor that she had found our cat Stinkerbell's collar. We took this little guy and his brother in as feral kittens. His brother has calmed down a lot, but Stinker was still about half wild, scared of everything, and not very friendly. My daughter spent a lot of time taming him, and he was actually a pretty sweet cat, though a little squirrely--we used to say that he was kind of autistic. He and his brother both insisted on going outside on a regular basis. The last time we saw him was Monday night when we came home from dinner and he was sitting on the front porch, but wouldn't come in.
Well, when my daughter called our younger daughter to tell her about them finding his collar, which was kind of a mess, she didn't tell her the whole story. They found him, too, and he had been badly mangled by a coyote. He's the second cat we've lost to coyotes--I hate those things! My older daughter is the most upset, because he was really her cat even though she no longer lives with us. Whenever she comes home the first thing she does is go look for him and his brother. Since she moved out he's kind of taken to me a little more, and I sure will miss him. It always felt like such an honor when he would rub up against my legs or ask for some petting, because it was so rare. I'm sure going to miss the little guy!