The Story of Smores!

by Angela
(Phoenix, AZ)

There are many stray cats in the area where me and my roommate live. Unfortunately, when people move out of their apartments, they are usually broke and because of that they leave their cats behind. Most are so feral that they will never approach humans, probably because they were born feral, but a few of the abandoned cats are still a little trusting of people, and allow friendly people to pet them. When i moved here about 2 years ago, i occasionally set out food and water bowls in front of our apartment.

It is so hot down here in Phoenix, and all they have to drink is the pool water, unfortunately the landlords remove the bowls right away, so we had to keep replacing them. I think that they actually believe that if no one feeds them, they will leave. After awhile i noticed the same kitty hanging around outside every night. She would let me pet her sometimes, and even let me pick her up, not without a few scratches though.

We already had two indoor cats, so we didn't really want to add another pet into our studio apartment. We eventually gave in, after hearing her meow at the door every night, and for some reason named her Smores. Not for any particular reason, it just popped into my head. At the time, we had thought that she was a male. Even though she let me pick her up, i was unable to check her gender. It was hard on our other cats, because she was very aggressive toward our other cats.

I knew that one day we would have to get rid of her, but i held onto her as long as i could. We eventually discovered that she was a female, when we realized that she was pregnant. She later had her kittens, but unfortunately they were born a little deformed, and only lived for 48 hours. We felt so bad for her, because she seemed so happy to be a momma. Not too long after that, we had to take her to the humane society. She was a sweetheart, just a little scared of people sometimes, so i believe that she was adopted.

A couple of months later we took in another cat that was abandoned by somebody we knew, who was also pregnant. That's the story of Boots...

Angela

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