Winter of 2011/12. Just settling back for a lie-in, heard an anguished kitten-screaming in the street.
Couldn't ignore it. She was very young, crouched on a doorstep, cold, wet, I knocked on the door, no answer. Couldn't leave her - brought her in and put a notice in my window and a note through the door where I'd found her. She scoffed a lot of food and her owners claimed her that evening - it was the same address where I'd found her - and they asked me to take her. Turns out they couldn't cope with her (and knowing my horrible Moll after three years I don't blame them lol!)
One partner had introduced her to her three cats at her own address. The cats had all moved out.
Between them this couple had older children and a baby. Molly would run upstairs when the children were in bed and whop them across the face. They were afraid of what she might do to the baby.
At first I refused but I ended up taking her after hearing her screaming in the street late at night - and the fun started. I have a small yard which is netted in so my cats don't roam (I provide ways for any intruders to escape when my cats aren't using the yard) but if my cats had been free roaming, I'm sure they would have moved out too after Molly moved in! I had to make it clear to Moll that senior cats are senior cats. Though she may have taken that on board I'm not sure if I'm senior human, even now...I did wonder if the previous owners' kids had roughnecked with her or teased her but in my experience such cats soon respond to gentle treatment and a refusal to 'play tigers.' Molly doesn't. Even after three years, although she is clingy and affectionate in her own way, if you stroke the wrong ear - she'll have you! She 'owns' me - she sleeps next to me on the bed; if I tell her off she comes and snuggles up to me and purrs, but - she's a 'wildie'. I have to accept her as she is.
She's very pretty - a small ginger with no white (which caused a lot of scepticism at the vet's when she went for spaying) with a long tubular body, big legs and a fine close coat that shows her mackerel markings and a wedge shaped head with slanting golden eyes, very very vocal and mischievous...hmm, Burmese blood perhaps, plenty of roaming pedigrees in a wide radius in this district.
Looks aside - she's a little devil, but she's here, she rules the roost and, well, that is that...
Have to love cats on their own terms eh?
