The kitty currently snoozing on my shoulder had been abandoned by her mom (a barn cat) at 4 weeks old. The mom’s owners took her in and bottle fed her w/the human baby formula they had on hand. She was not doing well, and they asked us to take her, because they had a pair of human 2 year olds, who were enough work at the time.

When we brought her to the vet, she had 2 types of worms and was crawling w/fleas. She weighed 4 oz. The vet muttered all sorts of things about how she should be with her mom (like we could do anything about that), but eventually got her bathed, treated for the worms, and gave us all the paraphernalia to feed her properly.

We called her our Half Cup O’ Kitty. For the first few days, she often slept in my husband’s shirt pocket (she was that tiny). I worked from home for the next 2 weeks, keeping her wrapped snug and warm in a blanket on my lap, and feeding her from a bottle every 30 minutes.

She improved day by day, and eventually did become a strong healthy kitty. She’s still going strong 14 years later!

We also have a stray from a gas station at the off-ramp of a major highway, where it intersects one of the busiest roads in the Northeast. He had been there for 2 days when I stopped for gas late one night. I asked the station owner if it was the station’s kitten, but he said no, and asked me to please take him, because he didn’t want the poor thing to be run over. The owner had put a bowl of milk out for him, but the little sweetie totally refused to come into the store. I went over toward him, slowly, and just sat down nearby until he was willing to come close enough for me to catch him, then brought him home. Since we didn’t know exactly how he got to the station, we called all the local vets and put up some signs. We had named him Visitor, so the kids wouldn’t get too attached if he had to go away, but no one ever claimed him. So Vizzie is still with us. He never became an indoor cat. I wonder if he had been either feral or a barn kitten before he found his way to the gas station. He is very aloof with most people, and would rather be outside or in the neighbor’s barn than anywhere else. But on those rare occasions when he’s in the right mood, he is the cutest, sweetest little snuggle bunny of a cat you could ever imagine.