We LOVE cats at our house. My 14 yo daughter volunteers at our local zoo cleaning cages and feeding. She wants to be a vet someday. One Saturday while she was there a zoo visitor ran into the gift shop shouting that the mountain lions were going to eat a kitten that had gotten into its cage.
The zookeeper rescued the battered and freaked out kitten and asked if anyone knew of a good home for it and guess who thought HER home was the best. lol
So, home she brought this scrap of a half starved kitten, he was maybe a month old. All black with a small spot of white on his belly. He has the deformity often found on Siamese cats where his tail is crooked at the very end. I thought her bringing home a black cat in October was a hoot. Our Halloween kitty. She named him Tailypo, after the creature in the children's story. She thinks he looks like the picture.
He was pretty frightened of everyone and everything and hid for a while. I was afraid he might be too feral to settle into family life. However, he was small enough and sick enough that our other cats took pity on him and mothered and cared for him like the baby he is. By watching them interact with us he realized that we humans were good for more than just producing yummy food. He is a sweet loving little guy now. Well, actually, he rules the roost.
Five out of six of our kids are adopted. Three out of foster care with all of the serious reasons in their backgrounds as to why children are placed there. Tailypo's story has provided a wonderful analogy for our youngest kids to see how no matter what your start in life and how scary and hopeless things seemed, it is okay to let go of all of the fear and trust and believe that you can be loved and trust that you will be cared for.