Smokey showed up on our doorstep with his pregnant mother Callie. We reached out and found his owners, and they insisted they wanted to keep the cats. Flash forward a bit and winter hits full force, negative temperatures every night. My mother found Smokey under our porch with his back half completely frozen. A few days later, we let Callie into our house and she had her kittens in my mother’s closet. When we talked to the owners, they made a comment about “we thought she went into labor somewhere and froze to death” but they wanted her back “when we got rid of the kittens”. Long story short.... it’s been five years and we still have Callie and Smokey. We think Smokey might be mentally slow because of being severely inbred (their owners technically occasionally fed them but their cats were basically a cat colony with the amount and treatment of them). Callie was the mother of most of them and had likely been having kittens since before she was a year old. They now both live as lazy, happy indoor cats. Smokey still has a lot of health problems and he’s a frequent flier in the vet due to bladder issues. Callie has some serious arthritis in her back and she has a few old injuries from her time outside. They’ll never be outside again if we can help it.

Brooke
DANVILLE, IL