(Through a local placement program for untamable ferals, my family adopts a very wild cat who hates other cats and people to help with pest control in our barn. We keep her in a special caged-off stall for a few weeks to try to get her more friendly, but she is having none of it so we resign ourselves to giving her the best life we can while she lives wild on the farm. For a whole year, she avoids us and we only see fleeting glimpses of her. Then, she starts watching us from the rafters as we do our chores. Then, she starts sitting on the shelf where we feed her, well within arm’s reach. Finally, one day…)

Father: “I pet Spooky today.”

Me: “You what?!”

Father: “I pet Spooky.”

Me: “No way.”

Father: “Oh, yes. And I picked her up.”

Me: “You picked her up?! You picked up the cat who almost tore our hands to ribbons through canvas gloves?”

Father: “I did. And she was purring!”

(We have no idea what clicked in her mind, but from that day forward, she became a totally different cat. She even goes to the vet without any fuss! Unfortunately, she still hates other cats so we can’t bring her inside — we have two indoor cats — but we’ve had her for eight years now and she enjoys a privileged position as the barn manager, chief pest control officer, and official farm greeter.)

(I’m sitting in the waiting room of the clinic with my kitten in a cat crate on my lap. My female kitten has been desexed, and now we are waiting for a vet to come and remove her stitches. As she has had stitches, she also has a cone on her head for the last two weeks and it’s safe to say she’s well and truly over it. The poor thing is softly doing sad little kitten “meep” sounds and looks miserable. As she is also rather small, even as a kitten, the sight looks even more woeful. She has been getting a lot of sympathy from the staff and the receptionist says that since it will take less than five minutes to get the stitches out, she will bump me ahead of the queue to get me out of here quickly. A woman waiting with her dog is also in the waiting room and sees my kitten.)

Woman: “Oh, no, poor thing! What happened here?”

Me: “She’s okay; she’s just a bit miserable at the moment because she’s had the cone for the last couple of weeks. Thankfully, it comes off today!”

Woman: “That’s good; she certainly doesn’t look happy! Is everything okay?”

Me: “Oh, yeah. She’s just been desexed. We’re just here to get the stitches out. She’s had the cone to stop her licking at her stitches.”

(The woman looks rather taken aback by this news.)

Woman: “Desexed? What do you mean by that?”

Me: “Well, I had her spayed.”

Woman: *still looking confused* “Yes, but why?”

(I now assume the woman is confused because my kitten looks rather small for her age, and therefore looks a little too young to have been desexed.)

Me: “Well, it’s to stop her having kittens herself. My other kitten is a male; he was desexed, as well. She looks small, but she’s at the age where it’s safe.”

Woman: *now looking slightly annoyed for some reason* “What does spaying involve, exactly?”

Me: “Well, it’s not the nicest thing, but it involves the removal of the female’s ovaries to stop egg production. Thankfully, it’s a very routine procedure, and apart from the cone and some stitches, my little girl has come out wonderfully. She was walking up and about in two days. She just can’t wait to get the cone off.”

Woman: *now looking horrified* “That sounds horrid! Why would you do such a thing?!”

Me: *taken very much aback, but also annoyed because it’s really none of this woman’s business* “Well, cats make wonderful pets, but they also aren’t good for the ecosystem. I’m not a cat breeder and wouldn’t know how to properly breed kittens and look after them, so I desex my cats to ensure they don’t contribute to a feral cat problem, and also to reduce the number of cats in shelters. Especially since my other cat is a boy; I don’t want kittens. He’s been desexed, too. Not only that, but a female cat in heat is irritating. They meow and screech horribly, and they mark their territory by peeing everywhere.”

Woman: *thoroughly disgusted now* “Well, that sounds ridiculous. I could not imagine putting my poor kitty through that torture and removing their body parts just to stop nature happening. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

(I was about to make my retort when I heard the receptionist call my name. Not wanting to start a fight and just wanting to get out of there, I went in and got my cat’s stitches out. The whole thing took two minutes, and my kitten already looked much happier without the cone. As I walked out, I overheard the receptionist call out for a neutering. Guess who stood up with her dog?)

This story is part of our Kitty roundup!

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I foster cats and kittens and have for about five years. I have two of my own female cats, and about two years ago I was given a stray female that someone had rescued from their yard where their dog tried to eat it. She was under a year old and heavily pregnant, which is usually a really bad combo. Sure enough, three weeks after she arrived, she popped out three kittens. Despite my best efforts, including hand-feeding the tiny black kitten she rejected, none of them made it past day two. Whilst very sad, this is pretty common, given she was injured and very young to begin with.

I kept her for another two months, getting her used to humans and caught up on her vaccines. She went from a terrified, half-starved, neurotic mess, to a very friendly and playful cat. I posted an updated photo of her into our foster group chat. One of the newest members was a middle-aged woman who had just moved to town and told us she’d been fostering animals for years.

She asked if she could have the cat, as she looked just like her old cat that had died the previous year. She even offered to take care of the vet bills if she could have the cat. I explained that the cat was due to be desexed in two weeks but she said that would be fine.

I thought, “Score!” to myself, happy that the kitty dubbed Lady would be going to another experienced cat owner. I dropped her off at this woman’s house and the woman seemed ecstatic. Lady seemed pretty happy, sniffing around the woman’s hallway and batting at a fake plant. I handed over the vet bills and didn’t think much of it again, which for me is a coping mechanism because I do very much miss the cats I hand over.

About a month later, there was a huge fight in the group chat between the “private” fosterers and the ones like me who are attached to a local vet’s office, who also runs the pound. As a result, the group chat disbanded and two separate ones were made, but I remained friends with a couple of the private fosterers and they reached out from time to time with questions or random comments. One day, one of the other girls messaged me, telling me I was going to be mad.

Turns out “Miss Experienced Fosterer” had never gotten Lady desexed, and had continued fostering male cats that had not been desexed. She had posted a picture in the group chat of poor Lady, again heavily pregnant, her ears and face covered in scars and missing fur from where she’d clearly been attacked, probably during mating. My poor former kitty looked miserable. The woman’s message said, “Can anyone take her? I don’t have time for kittens.” Most people in their chat had obviously forgotten where she got Lady. Luckily, my friend offered to come get her right away and brought her straight to my house. When she saw me and my cats she collapsed on my lap and refused to move for three hours, with my other cats coming over to lick her and snuggle. I took her to the vet, had her wounds addressed, and brought her home again.

That was over a year ago. She and her two kittens, Comet and Captain, are all desexed, vaccinated, and living happily at my house, where they will stay. Lady still panics whenever we go on holiday and hides immediately when she sees a male cat. She’s much shyer and more skittish than she was when she left here the first time, and it will probably take years for me to gain her real trust again. 

I have never and will never give up cats to anyone without a background check and check-ins again.

This story is part of our Animal Shelter Roundup!

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(I work in a hotel. A dog is barking in a room during breakfast time, and we can hear it in the lobby. A guest — the owner of the dog — approaches me at the front desk.)

Guest: “That barking is putting me off my breakfast.”

(Thinking she’s joking, I let out a small laugh.)

Guest: “Well, what should be done?!”

Me: “Er… I suppose you could go eat your breakfast with your dog, and then it might stop barking?”

Guest: “No! No, that is not my dog. It is someone else’s dog. I want to file a complaint.”

Me: “Ma’am. It’s definitely your dog.”

Guest: “No, my dog doesn’t bark when I leave my room.”

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t know how else to tell you. There’s only one dog staying here. It’s your dog.”

Guest: “MY DOG IS GOOD! SHE DOESN’T BARK FOR NO REASON! THAT DOG IS PUTTING ME OFF MY BREAKFAST AND I WANT YOU TO FIX IT.”

(I started to smile; I couldn’t believe the sheer stupidity of the conversation. She turned around and stomped down the hallway, presumably to “prove” it was not her dog. She got to her room and the barking stopped. I never saw her again, hopefully because she felt like a huge jerk for yelling at me about her own dog. And how exactly does a barking dog interfere with your ability to eat breakfast? I mean, really.)

(It’s early in the day and not many people are at the mall. As I enter through the main doors, there’s a flash of black near my ankles. I look down and see that a black cat has shot past me into the mall.)

Me: “Where did you come from?”

Cat: “Meow.” 

Me: “Let’s get you back outside, okay?”

Cat: “Meow.” 

(I carefully reach downwards, prepared to pull back if the cat reacts poorly. But it doesn’t object to me scooping it up and holding it. I’m about to take it back outside when I notice a female scowling and making strange gestures with her hands, almost like she’s making a cross.)

Me: “Uh, ma’am?”

Female: “You picked up a black cat! You’re cursed!”

(I changed my mind and walked over to the mall security office, more to report the female’s behavior than concerned with the cat. But of course, mall security was concerned about the cat, and since the female didn’t actually do anything to me, they couldn’t do anything about her. The cat had no ID of any kind or any indication of where it came from. And that’s how I met my furry owner. He’s owned me for seven years now and has added my girlfriend and my son to his list of pet humans.)