I love cats
I work with 2 cat rescues (foster home for one, feral trapper for another)
i have TNR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap-Neuter-Return 14 feral cats
i have fostered a totall of 6 adult cats and 26 kittens
i own 7 cats
1 of my cats is a tamed feral
3 bottle raised from 2-3 week old orpans
2 are kept foster kittens
1 is adopted.
now fate dropped a new cat in my lap

i went to the coral reef shop to get stuff for my new tank, but we got there to find they would not open until 5 so we went to petsmart to kill time. at this petsmart is a very large feral cat colony, we know they are feral because the rescue we are with tried to trap and spay them all but gave up. so we park in the shade and i see a calico butt in a hole in the fence at eye level, i walk up and poke it, nothing happens, i think its dead, i poke again and it stares at me ITS A KITTEN (and my mom loves calicos) i back up, it stares at me and goes back to sleep, i carefully try to scruff her but it wakes up at the last second and runs off, i go in and shop, i come out ITS BACK, i try again, she spots me coming and runs off. and i kicked myself the rest of the day for comming so close to catching her twice.

i come back the next day just to see but my hopes are not high, but low and behold SHE IS SLEEPING IN THE SAME SPOT! OMFG! O.O i have gloves this time and a crate to put her in, i run up and just grab her this time and i get a good grip on the scruf of her neck and i CAUGHT HER HOLY CRAP. i got in the car, closed the door and put her in the crate and i was shaking and cussing with joy!

we put on some feline advantage that night because she was freaking covered in fleas and eggs and her skin covered in icky black sandy flea dirt. she was seen by a vet the next day and she was actually anemic from the fleas. she gpt spayed and bathed and got a blood test which came back as a slight positive for feline leukemia but the vet assured us it is very likley a false negative as she is so young and kittens tend to give false tests and she will be tested again in 3 months. even if she does have FL we will keep her as long as her quality of life is good and deal with the tough issues of this deadly virus (most cats with it do not live past 4 years) when/if they arise.

she was pretty wild at first and almost bit through the gloves more than once and scratched me good, but within 4 days i got her to purr for me and now she is happy to sit in my lap and purr. still very skittish when loose in the room so she stays in a cage so she can get used to the hustle and bustle around the house rather than hide from it.

its like fate, we did not plan on going to petsmart that day, we just so happened to park there, it happened to be youg enough to tame, she happened to be a color we would want to have as a pet (my mom hates black cats for instance) she was in that spot 3 times, i mangaed to grab a feral kitten by hand... its kinda freaky.

and i feel good to have nabbed her as now she can be a pet rather than living in a parking lot next to a pet store being a baby making machine covered in fleas and matted fur. watching her lay in her box on a piece of carpet rolling back and forth chewing on her catnip fish rather than living in a dirt lot makes me so happy