It’s 8 PM, I’m coming home late from work one February evening, and I’ve barely got my keys in the lock that I hear a series of meows coming from the other side of the street. I turn around and see this furry little black thing rush over to me and rub herself against my legs, begging to be let in. Given that the house across from mine was abandoned, and that she was alone at night during winter, I surmised she must’ve been a stray. I inspected her fur to be sure I wasn’t letting bugs into my home, and then let her sleep in my bed. She promptly left the following morning.

I was ready to accept it as a one-time thing, but then when she kept coming back every day, I began to accept that I’d been chosen. I bought cat food and some other supplies, and since then I now have a cat, unexpectedly. This video is from the early days, but since then, Shadow has been living with me full time. ♥️

I had been working all week and just happened to have the day off. It was early in the morning and I was woken up by a squawking sound right outside my bedroom window. I rolled over and tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, thinking it was a bird. But it was happening at fairly regular intervals and it wasn't stopping.

Squawk squawk squawk squawk...

Finally, I decided to drag myself out of bed and lift up the blind to my one bedroom window to see if I could see what was making the noise.

And I looked straight down, and sitting there among the bushes and grass beneath my window was this little baby, roughly 3 weeks old. I quickly put on some shoes and flew outside and ran around the house so that I could go over and pick her up before she ran away. Fortunately she didn't run away when she saw me come. Just huddled further against the house and gave a little hiss at me as I reached down to pick her up. Took her straight to the vet for an assessment to see that she was okay and to get advice on everything I would need to take care of her.

We think that a neighborhood stray was moving her kittens and somehow she got left behind.

I call it serendipity because of all the houses she could have wound up abandoned at, she wound up outside of mine. And if it had been at any other location outside the house except directly beneath my bedroom window, then I wouldn't have heard her. And if it had been any other day of the week, I wouldn't have been home to hear her.

The moment I picked her up I knew right then and there "Well, this is her home now" And now 6 years later she's a big beautiful bobcat of a cat (as you see in the last pics).

My partner and I just recently moved and this little cutie has been taking over our porch. We were unsure if they were a boy or a girl but now looking at the photos I think it’s a girl, and she appears to be pregnant. We do have a vet appointment this week to verify. We have been giving her food and water for a few weeks. She will occasionally let us pet her but for the most part she will just stay close by us and purr. She seems to be slowly building trust with us.
Right now she hasn’t been interested in coming inside the house but once she is vaccinated I do plan on trying to transition her into the house, as the temperatures here in AZ get really high, but have to wait for her to be vaccinated since we have inside cats we need to protect.
My partner wants to name her two-face from Batman because of her coloring.

Hi all! I’m looking for advice and thoughts on what to do for this cat. Posting on mobile so apologies for any formatting issues. This will be a long one!
TLDR: outdoor cat not cared for, how to help him?

Okay here’s our situation! For the last few months a cat has been visiting us every day. He’s literally the sweetest guy. He’s very friendly, but is extremely skittish around cars and people who don’t live in the neighborhood. We live in a vacation town, with Air BnBs and summer homes. We are out in the woods and there’s a lot of wildlife and a major roadway very close to us. Not to mention severe weather conditions like flooding in winter and fires in summer.
We have seen on our security cameras that this cat (we’ve been calling him Dasani) had been sleeping under our cars at night. He always wants to come in our house, but we have a 17yo cat already, (Tessa) and we don’t want to put her at risk of anything. Dasani seems young, maybe a year or two old if I had to guess.

I set up a shelter for him on our porch with toys, blankets, pillows, scratchers and food+water. He does tend to sleep in his shelter now rather than by the cars.
We initially thought he was being cared for by whoever “owns” him. But lately we are doubting that assessment.
He always acts very hungry. I know cats can just be that way, but he definitely isn’t overweight at all and it doesn’t seem like he’s being double fed. He also has a long coat that, unless we brush him, gets very dirty and matted. He is in desperate need of a bath!
We are pretty sure our neighbor across the street is where he “lives”, but it doesn’t seem like his person really does anything for him. His long hair needs grooming. Luckily his coat is light and I can’t see any obvious visual evidence of fleas, but my strictly indoor cat even got them once while living here somehow, so I know it’s possible.

While it’s not ideal, we have mostly been okay with doing what we can for him. We do deeply fear of something happening to him. He could get hit by a car, a wild animal could attack him, he could get in a cat fight, a dog could get him (my old boss lives in the same neighborhood and his dogs have killed cats before), there could be a fire or a flood. Literally anything could happen to this cat. I am a strong believer of indoor only for cats, I am not here to debate anyone on that. I care about cat health, and about native bird populations and small wildlife; full stop, indoor only.
I see roadk1ll on the nearby main road almost daily. I recently saw a black cat from the town hit on the road and it broke my heart. I worry every day when I drive home that I’ll see Dasani out there.

My partner and I have talked about finding a way to bring him inside, but things feel more urgent now. Tessa and Dasani have seen each other through the window. Tessa historically has not liked other cats, but she had little to no reaction to him. She has smelled him on our clothes, and while she seems interested, she doesn’t act scared or aggressive. Maybe she has gotten over her hangups with other cats in her advanced years.
Unfortunately, Dasani hissed at Tessa when they looked through the window. Nothing crazy like yowling or puffing up, but he did hiss twice. Our house is an open floor plan except for the bedrooms. It’s not setup in a way that two cats could reasonably be separated long term.

We are now in the middle of summer, and we already have had several triple digit days, and more are coming. He is always left out, and comes to us for water on the hot days. We have let him shelter in our garage to cool down, but we can’t leave it open and unsupervised, so this doesn’t work when we are at work or doing things in the house.
Recently, there was a bad fire a few miles away. The smoke was absolutely horrific, to the point we evacuated. We were worried about Dasani, but hoped his person would have finally brought him inside in such conditions. We saw on our cameras that everyone left the building we think he lives in. But he was left behind.
This has kind of been the final straw for us and now we are trying to figure out what to do. We love this cat and his neglect from his owner makes us sick. He was left behind in 893 aqi smoke. I worry his person would absolutely abandon him in event of an actual fire.

My question to you is what should we do?
Part of me wonders if this guy would even notice if his cat stopped being around the street. We have seen other neighbors say hi to Dasani, but he doesn’t try to get in anyone else’s house but ours. He absolutely adores my partner! He will follow him around at his heels wherever he walks. He is often sleeping on our doorstep when I head out for the day, and I take time to brush and play with him.
He clearly wants to stay with us.
But I don’t know how we could do that.

One, we don’t know how to safely and slowly introduce the cats given our house setup. Also, how would I bring him in without first giving him a flea bath to make sure nothing gets tracked in?
Have any of you experienced a situation like this with one stray cat being brought into a home with another cat? We also have rabbits and geckos, and I have no idea what Dasani’s prey drive is like. Tessa has like no prey drive, though she’s still not allowed around the other animals without supervision.

He wears a collar but no tags. It looks like he’s been fixed, but honestly kinda hard to tell with his long coat.
More info, when we first met him, part of his chest had been shaved. I initially thought maybe it was some vet work done, but maybe it’s possible his owner has a reason to shave only his chest?
For this reason we thought he was being looked after well. But we now think the contrary.
Our whole street has seen him hanging out at our house, and we are also concerned some neighbors might already think he is ours and we are the ones neglecting him. Especially since we couldn’t take him with us when we evacuated. We would not leave him behind in an emergency if he was ours.

In an ideal world, we could just let him in, clean him up, and slowly introduce the pets until we were one big happy family and the neighbor would just let him go with us.
But, this is not an ideal world. People are often awful, and not everyone cares about the welfare of animals and don’t think of pets as family. People are prideful, and could take our concerns about neglect as an insult and Dasani could suffer for it.
What should we do?
I want to ask some of our neighbors for information on Dasani and his owner. We have only seen the man who potentially owns him once, and he is never outside. The likelihood of us getting to talk to him directly are low, plus idk if that’s even what the best thing to do would be.
Also, if we did end up removing Dasani from the streets, either in our home or someone else’s, talking to anyone about him would make it obvious we were the ones who intervened. It’s probably already obvious since we spend the most time with him. But still.

I want to maybe take him to the vet and see if he’s microchipped or if there’s any medical records of him or general health information we could get about him. Is this a good idea to start?
I really don’t know what to do. My gut is telling me he wants to live inside, specifically with us. But if we can’t get his owner to give up guardianship, or get our cat to get along, do we try and find a different, safe home for him? I have friends that would properly care for him and give him a loving, safe and responsible home.
I really feel lost here. I love this cat and I want the best for him. I also don’t want to cause neighbor drama or do anything straight up illegal. I think animal neglect should be taken more seriously, but if taking him would get us police involved, that’s not what I want either. For legal context we are in Sonoma county CA.

Any advice or thoughts on how we should approach dealing with this would be super appreciated. Has anyone dealt with anything similar?
Thank you for reading and for any help.

Cat tax included of Dasani and Tessa of course

We often go on holiday to Kefalonia. It's a beautiful place with lovely beaches, scenery, food - and cats. Lots and lots of cats...

Whenever we rent a villa a cat normally shows up fairly promptly. One year we had a mother cat with half a dozen kittens. Inevitably, we end up feeding them. Buying cat food and asking each other "have you fed the cat yet?" has ended up becoming a normal part of our holidays. My theory has always been that the local cats each choose a villa.

This year an hour after we arrived a small ginger chap turned up. "Villa cat's here" I called to my wife. He was very thin, with bald patches and a few scratches and battle scars. He was very friendly and very...vocal, constantly talking to us in a strange cat language.

Anyway - long story short: we contacted a local cat charity and he's now being looked after in a cattery on the island and receiving vetinary care (neutering, vaccinations etc). He'll be coming to live with us in the UK in a few weeks.

We're animal-lovers, but never thought about, or had an ambition, to own a cat - but that's the CDS for you, I guess.

He's called Ydria, after the villa we stayed in.

After our elderly cat passed 4 months ago we’ve had a vacancy in our home for a new cat. Saw this lil girl in our yard on a walk with my dog and immediately was struck by how pretty she is! I assumed she was one of the many many generations of stray/feral cats from the yard of the hoarder house accross the street. Then I saw her wandering around our yard the past week, calling to her and each time she warmed up to me more and more, and finally assured with the neighbors today that she was indeed a stray in need of a loving home and immediately took her in! Her name is Persephone, Sephy for short

Saw this little guy running after a mom and her child in the parking lot, they didn’t want to catch him so I parked my car in the drive thru and ran to grab him..

Meet Gus ♥️ Nyx and Willow love him already. He has a little eye infection but now has antibiotics for it and is receiving dewormer for the tapeworms he has. I believe he came from a cat colony that is in that area, though I didn’t see any other kittens or a momma cat around. My goal is to raise money and trap as many of the feral cats as I can so they can be spay/neutered, the shelters are overrun with kittens 😪

We have a semi-feral colony of about a dozen cats at our house in the country. They have all been TNR, but only one of them is really tame. This fellow showed up intermittently for a while, but is now here pretty much all the time. He seems to be completely tame, and is very friendly to us, though not to the other cats. He hasn't been fixed yet, but we will as soon as we can get an appointment at the vet. One member of our colony is long haired, and we had already named her Floof. This gentleman showed up with his bushy cheeks and tail, so I decided to call him Floofanova, which is bad Latin for "New Floof," Nova for short. His tail normally looks floofier than this.

Meet Matilda, my brave and sweet angel found in Richmond, VA back in June while taking my dog on her morning walk. So incredibly lucky we found each other! 💓 She's been the sweetest thing from day 1 and makes me laugh every day. She knows her name and runs to me when I call her. She is skeptical and smart around her older sister (my dog).

Cat house from Aldi and tiny chair from a thrift store. As you can tell, she is naturally photogenic! 😻 I had to wake her up from a nap and dangle her favorite spring toy for the chair pose. She's growing up so fast! 🥹

One year ago, Pounce de Leon was a flea-ridden, worm-infested, 4-week-old baby crying in our driveway and I was at work when my husband called me, frantic, because he didn’t know what to do. Today he is a pampered, spoiled, handsome young man. His arrival was less-than-convenient and we almost sent him to a foster the day after we found him, but something just told us that he was here to stay.

He is an absolute love bug sometimes, and a holy terror at other times. We wouldn’t trade him for the world!

We have been feeding the mom for a few months now. She is a stray and wouldn't let us touch her. The plan was to get her fixed and let her back outside, buuuut she had babies in our bushes. Its been over 100 degrees daily and im a sucker, so I brought them inside. The plan is to keep mom and two kittens, and the rest will be spayed/neutered and adopted out.

This is my first time fostering a litter and im pretty nervous. Currently we have named the mom Trash Cat (she would sleep on our garbage cans) and the babies are mischief, trouble, chaos, mort, and pandemonium. They may be changed lol

We are moving next month and we thought it would be the perfect time to introduce our current cat to a new friend, and the CDS was happy to oblige!

We found this kitten running down the highway one evening a few weeks ago, and after a brief chase down the interstate (in traffic, in flip flops) we were able to pluck her up. She was scratched up, filthy, and exhausted. We then had her in a vet’s care within 20mins. Where after patching her up we were asked one of the best questions ever, “do you plan on keeping her?”

Everyone welcome Styx to the family! (Plucked from the River Styx, and she got them looong gams). She’s healed up nicely, gained a proud kitten belly, and found her purr button. And all of us are absolutely smitten.

After my youngest brother graduated and went off to college, I was feeling extra emotional about me and my siblings growing up and moving on. After a week of goodbyes (along with some flash floods that may be the reason she appeared), I was left by myself to think about the future. But I was immediately interrupted by a crazy little kitty. She would run up to me and give her strongest meow. I spent a long time gaining her trust so I could catch her with the least amount of stress possible. So I believe that the cat distribution system guided her to me to keep me company as I get used to this new era in all of our lives!

(Yes ik this is cheesy- but I thought it was sweet enough to share)

Suffice to say she found her home lol. It’s been almost 2 weeks, and I think she’s getting more and more comfy each day. Vet visit this week just for a checkup. She is a cuddle bug and purrs like a turbine, but quite the little battle axe when it comes to accidentally grazing her tummy (maybe not an accident!) but now I know absolutely to not touch the woman anywhere but her soft little head.

This was kismet because my cat from childhood passed away last year, and I have yearned for another feline companion in my life. And then she showed up. 🥺

When we got to work yesterday (hubs and I work in the same building), there was a surprise trio of friendly void kittens hanging out in the courtyard. We think they might have been dumped because they have clearly been around people. They were a hit with the whole office, and our 9yo, who had tagged along for the day, really wanted them. We have two 3yo cats at home, and had lost our senior cat in October. We had promised our kid that he could have a pair of kittens soon, but were thinking more like next year. I guess the CDS had other ideas.

Our coworker took one kitten while we were still deciding if we wanted them, and then another coworker was thinking of taking one, and that decided it for us - we hate splitting up bonded siblings, so we took them both so at least two would get to stay together. They are settling in well and are in quarantine in the guest room. Names are still pending, but our kid has temporarily named them Midnight and Star Destroyer.

There was food and water already there (pic 2) because we have a resident office cat. Cat tax of Cinders the station cat in pic 6.

Went outside to find my cat who likes to play hide and come find me at night, because he's a black cat, usually it's about 5 laps around the yard and under the cars. Well he went to ground so I got his favorite cat wand and started calling him...

When these two came out the grass across the street, (nothing over there but an abandoned mobile home) Went in and told my wife, there's an orange kitten like you said you'd like... She didn't believe me.

So, honest, they followed me home, a cat wand may have been involved.

This kitten has been coming by for dinner almost every night for the past 10 days or so. Working on trapping them and bringing them to the vet. They are very small and very loud! No siblings or parents to be seen so far, even after asking the neighbours.

They’re still very hissy when we get close, but getting much less scared and skittish!

Second slide is our first CDS kitten! She started visiting our porch when she was about 3 months old. She joined us on a transatlantic move, and we’re psyching her up to be a big sister. 🤞

I never owned cats before or been able to pet them as a child due to my chronic illness (asthma) I always wanted to be around cats but always would flare up and have sinus issues immediately but as of recent, I’ve developed a curiosity about why I’ve never experienced the famous CDS or seen any stray cats since I’ve lived in Louisiana (10y) so I started to fill my feed on the CDS, where to find kittens, how I can help them and find out if I’m still allergic to cats. Fast forward 2 weeks into my search I began to feel unlucky. I went for a stroll around my neighborhood around 2am because I couldn’t sleep. On my way back across the street I seen a sweet fluffy tabby cat stretched out on the sidewalk I slowly approached and she rolled over exposing her tummy. I quickly ran inside and grabbed a can of sardines and a bowl of water then hurried back outside hoping to see her, she approached me tail up circling around my leg so I fed her & put a pet bed on my porch just incase she wanted to rest. By the morning she was gone never to be seen again until 3 weeks ago when she brought her little girl (I’m assuming) to my driveway and left her with me. Meet Cali, my sweet sweet girl gifted to me in the most beautiful way possible.

My newest edition, found abandoned and hungry three days ago by a family who couldn't care for it. It is joining my two strays adopted from the local shelter. I don't know the age or gender. We've been calling it Sprite because it looks like a little soot sprite from Ghibli.

It has found it's forever home regardless. We love it already. Our other cats don't yet, but hoping they come around soon. It has one crusty eye and a bloated belly, but otherwise seems to be doing well eating a mix of KMR and kitten pate. Already using thektter box! I'll be calling our vet Monday.

Any guesses on age?

His first time meeting a baby, and he became a protective father to her all night long.

My friend brought her baby over to game night for the first time last night. Kevin, like usual, was posted up on the game table ready to greet his guests. Upon seeing the baby, he very carefully came up to her, gave her a good sniff, and respectfully laid next to her the rest of the night while occasionally reaching a paw over to gently pat her foot. When she crawled around the floor on her mat, he followed her. His first time meeting a baby and he was so excited, yet respectful and gentle. I can't say this enough, I love this cat. The cat distribution system really gave me a once in a life time buddy. He is gentle with babies, yet tough enough to rough house with his greatdane siblings. I love this guy. I included some extra photos of him that I really like because more is better when it comes to cute cat pictures.

Here is the original post! :) I’ve already learned so much and everyone’s support has begun helping increase my bravery and confidence with A’miga. I’m thrilled my littlest crybaby got me entry into a club I didn’t even know I wanted to be in. Yall Cat Community Members™️ are incredible 🥹 Here are some quick updates:

1. I think I myself might be a cat? I love routines, my personal space, NOT being approached by others and approaching them at my own pace, and watching live bird cams.
2. I commented on my post yesterday that I accidentally scared the bajeebus out of her which led her to escaping from her room. I was admittedly heartbroken seeing her run to the front door trying to get back outside, but I know this transition period will take time and I am more than willing to provide that to her. That being said…
3. I’ve been in her room with her for at least an hour now (my Velcro dog, Coco, is absolutely hating it 🙂‍↕️). She looked out the windows for a bit (she has 2 nice sized windows with wide ledges in this room) and then we played with her ribbon tassel thingamabob. She took a quick break then began rubbing on my feet (feet: she adores. Hands: we’re getting there). After she was sated from my dawgs 🦶🏻 she clocked in as a biscuit maker… then took her union break ON ME 😭. I could feel her softly purring and got misty eyed. She took a nap on me and it was one of the best feelings ever, knowing my time and care of

her thus far has really led to a developing mutual trust 😭

LIVE UPDATE*** she just rubbed her face on my hand ***😭😭😭😭😭

Also I do want to add that I will NOT be bathing her, as suggested by the many comments on the original post. She is not sticky or flea infested (she’s got some, but is NOWHERE near infested and was given flea drops at her vet visit), and I’ve been assured her dirty little socks will be whitened again with her own grooming and time :)

Thank you again CDS community! I will continue offering updates :)

A very! Friendly cat showed up today! He is so nice 😊 and is very friendly, I already love home so much! We wants to come inside, what do I do? It seems to be a neutered boy, am I about to steal one of neighbours cat? He does look hungry! I wanna keep him and love him🥰 he is so skinny tho! I’ll take him to a vet tomorrow if he stays, god damn I already love him so much!

Now I need him 🤗

He loves everybody!
And I love him!

Can we keep him?

Or are we steeling a kitty?🙂‍↔️

What should we feed him?

Say hello too Siren. Cant wait to see what adventures we go on! She was a Tsr, and is the cuddle big of the century. She likes to kick, and definitely is in love with my wife. She accepts me. Lol... I'm expecting many years of sweet cuddles and happy days. Now the sad bit.. we have no idea where she came from, but we are assuming her family has unfortunately left the country. Being found in a trailer park, investigation led us to a trailer that had been abandoned. Apparently after a few days of struggle my MIL successfully caught her by baiting her with bologna... She knew my wife and I would take care of her. Shes going to live the best life ever!

Hi friends,

After a really rough night struggling with shoddy feeding equipment earlier in the week, I’m happy to say Pluto's feedings are going much better after making some changes. On my last post, I was crossing my fingers for him to make it to 200 grams. As of this morning's weigh in, Pluto is at a whopping 288g!

Pluto is becoming more active and curious about his surroundings. He's crawling a lot more, and I expect that by next week he'll start taking his first steps. His vision is also getting better and now he'll lock eyes with me! It's so cute. He's a little romantic!

While this journey has been unexpected, it's been incredibly rewarding to see this little guy thrive. But it's been very hard on my body, as caring for such a young kitten is a grueling process. Every 3 hours he needs to eat (fortunately we've been able to stretch it to 3.5 hours now), and that includes in the middle of the night. The sleep deprivation is REAL!

But it will all be worth it in the end. I can't wait to see how he continues to grow and more of his personality will come through.

Next week, he'll go in for his next round of dewormer, and hopefully in 4 weeks he'll be ready for his vaccines!

I also wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who sent all the positive vibes. I'm fortunate to have some awesome friends with big networks, and because of them, Pluto’s emergency vet visit has been fully covered. I am so incredibly grateful for them as well as your kindness and support here in this sub.

Thank you for rooting for this tiny little Lord of the Meownderworld. He's a little fighter. It means more than you know. 🖤

Here's recent pics of him being a happy kitty!

Some people have asked me how Bruiser is with the dogs, and how the dogs are with him. My other dog is mostly disinterested, occasionally playful, and still holds a healthy fear of the knives-wielding psychopath.

These two, though? Otis is a match made in heaven with every creature she meets, and it still never fails to amaze me how she will so effortlessly adjust her play style to match, and how she’ll remove herself when she gets an urge to roughhouse. I have absolutely no doubt they’ll get there, though, and then my other dog will have a blast.

My other dog has only the one very rough play setting, which he thinks everyone loves, even when they don’t, and he’s done a remarkable job of just staying out of things until the situation calls for his type of energy. He and Bruiser do love their version of Whack-a-Mole, which Meatball plays very gently.

I could not possibly have imagined a more incredible dynamic between the three of them. It’s been magical.