How did you find your cat?

When I was little we adopted my first cat, Barbie, for my sisters birthday. A few weeks later we found a kitten who had been eating our neighbors dog food, and they were unable to keep it because of allergies. Knowing we just got a kitten, they asked if we wanted a second. And we did. So that's how we obtained 2 cats in a month. So how did you get your cat? Did you find them on the street? Adopt them from a shelter? Or, like what almost happened to me 3 years ago, did your cat find you, inviting itself into your home and adopting you as your owner?

I'm especially interested in the last situation, I find cat's sense of ownership and bonding hilarious.

We adopted my cat back when we were living in Chile. We lived in a very poor area and every saturday a group of women would gather at the local square and give up puppies and kittens they had found on the streets for adoption. So one day we went there and found this white little kitten and decided to adopt her. She's now 12 years old, living in Sweden with us and just as grumpy as always!

I do have a story similar to yours, although not with a cat. When we lived in Chile a dog adopted us. She lived on our street and had seen that we had a dog in our back yard, and she also realised we were friendly as we would always pet her when we saw her. So, stubborn and determined as she is - one day she decided that's where she was going to live! So she started sneaking in through our fences and into our house, almost on a daily basis, jumping up in our couches and just showing us that this was her new home, whether we liked it or not. Of course we couldn't resist the cute little mutt, and that's how she ended up coming back to Sweden with us too! Puppy (her name) is now 12 years old and a really spoiled princess- only sleeps on pillows in beds and couches and loves cheese more than anything. She has also starred in a short film here in Sweden with two of our most famous actors! Now that's a pretty good job coming from an ex Chilean street dog no one wanted! And she did it all by herself

I have two cats. I got my older cat, Nell, at a time I really wanted a cat. I wasn't as aware of the stray pet situation as I am today, but I still didn't even think about buying a pet. I was asking around looking for people who had a litter of kittens they didn't want. It took me a while to find one, and I got the last of the litter, a tuxedo cat nobody didn't want (the rest of the litter were pure black cats, and single colored cats are considered cuter, I guess). When she was about a year and a half old, in autumn, we found a kitten on the street. It was a month year old black kitten, and he couldn't stand on his back leg. Of course, we took him in to take him to the vet, he wouldn't survive on the street with a bad leg. It turned out to be a small vitamin deficiency problem, which was solved pretty easily, but we couldn't find anyone to take the kitten, so we had ho choice but to keep him. He is now over a year old, and they seem to be getting along well.

My cat came to me via my brother and his wife. They have always had several cats in their home and adopted what turned out to be a pregnant stray that her sister had found. We live next door to my brother and my then 7 year old son would go over every day to see the kittens after they were born. I'd had outdoor cats before, but never really wanted an indoor cat. Well, somehow I got talked into this little lady and became the parent of an indoor-only cat. [We live on a busy road and had had a couple of outdoor cats hit/killed by cars ] What ended up happening, of course, is that this cat became MY buddy. She liked the other members of the family just fine, but she took to me the most. And over the 14 years I've had her she's been a fabulous friend.

I also have an apple head Siamese that came with my husband when we married last year and she's a sweetheart as well....more cuddly than mine and full of curiosity for exploring small spaces in our home. She likes to sleep on my pillow at night.

Regarding pets that choose you, rather than the other way around....we had two cats do that....one was another tortoise-shell calico we had when my kids were little, what a sweetheart! She just showed up out back one day and we started feeding her. She wasn't in our lives too long, though. I also had a grey tiger show up one day and that little guy was a sweetheart too. Somehow he always knew when I needed a little extra affection and would seek me out.

My cat followed my roommate home last winter. It was snowing pretty hard outside, so we decided to let her sleep in our old apartment for the night until we found her owner. We put posters up all over town, and we even called a few phone numbers we found on different fliers (even though the cats looked different). No one ever called us, so we decided to let her stay a little longer. She was so well behaved and friendly, and we quickly grew attached to her.
We later found out that she was a feral cat who was caught and released. Part of her left ear is missing, which I learned was from ear tipping. This lets people know the cat has been fixed and released back into the wild. It's odd, though, that she was a stray because she adores people and can be quite the attention hog! I'm glad she found us, though, because she's a sweet cat.

My first cat was stuck on top of our garage roof. I had no idea how she got there but I wouldn't be surprised if our neighbor threw her there. It was noon and the roof was getting pretty hot so I climbed up, got her, fed her and kept her. I named her "Dracula" even if she was a girl. She was a cat that could be easily considered "ugly" because she was predominantly black with brown and orange streaks but to me she was such a cute little thing and I felt sorry for her because she was scared and alone. Dracula pretty much settled at our place and I grew up with her. She would leave from time to time but always come back. She was such a nice cat because she never bothered my chickens or any other pets I had later on. I miss Dracula.

Mine was given to me by my husband. When he was given a half persian kitten by one of his students, he asked me if I would mind looking after his former cat. The two cats eventually got along after weeks of hissing at each other. The older cat seemed to understand that my husband was more into the new kitten and decided to make me his human. We have been very close ever since and he is always by my side when I'm on the computer.

We adopted our cat from the ASPCA during an adoption event at the local PetSmart. It's really cool, because we came in and saw him and something just said to us that he's our cat as soon as we held him. We didn't even hold another cat. He needed love, it was obvious. They had him in a cat carrier that was too small for him. As I type this right now he's next to me on the couch snoring happily. His life now compared to his life before we adopted him is as different as night to day.

Now he gets kitty treats and hugs and love whenever he wants it. I'm so glad we got him that day. His snoring is REALLY cute.

I adopted my cat about 8 years ago when I was still living in Canada. I already had another cat at the time that I adopted with my ex-boyfriend, and as she was turning one year old I thought it would be nice for her to have a friend. I was a full-time student and my boyfriend was working full-time, so I thought she might get bored by herself.
I started looking online and found on a classified ads website that a lady in my neighborhood had kittens for adoption, they were 2 months old and ready to find a forever home. As soon as I saw that little fur ball, I instantly fell in love.
When my ex and I separated, he kept the female cat while I kept my baby boy and it's the best decision I have ever made. He just turned 8 a week ago and he's still my baby. He sleeps next to me at night (even if my now husband isn't too happy about that!) and always greets me when I get home from work. I truly am a cat lady

We thought long and hard and debated before getting our cat because we were living in Guam at the time and knew if we got a cat it would be flying to our next duty station with us. We finally decided we were ok with that responsibility and went to the animal shelter. My son picked out the most hyper acting calico and we named her Boba. When it was time for us to leave Guam, we paid to have her flown here to Washington state with us. As a military family, unfortunately we are well aware of people who get dogs and cats at their current duty station, only to get rid of them when it's time to transfer. We didnt want to be those people.

I always had cats growing up, and they were always free. I remember driving by a "Free Kittens" sign in elementary school and asking my parents if we could get one. When I got home the next day we had two new kittens. One of them is still alive and kickin', the other ran away a couple years after we got him.
Another one of our cats just wandered into our yard one day and never left. My brother was friends with the cat's owners down the street and they told us to keep him. He passed away last year.

When I was growing up, we had several cats throughout the years and after moving out on my own I didn't have a cat for a long time. One day I was at a someone's house and they had kittens that they were trying to give away and I decided to take one. Cat number 1.

A couple of years later, I was driving through the middle of town on Main Street and a little yellow kitten was dodging vehicles and ran right across the street in front of me. I was afraid that the kitten would get run over, so I immediately pulled over at the side of the street (I wasn't even in a parking spot) and the kitten had run into the yard of a local business and stopped. I jumped out of my vehicle and ran up and grabbed the kitten. There were some people walking on the sidewalk and I asked if this was their kitten or if they knew who it belonged to. They just looked at me like I was an alien, so I just took the kitten home with me and kept him. Cat number 2.

A year after that, I seen a kitten outside my building and I asked the neighbors if this was their kitten. The neighbor said it was but she said the kitten meowed all the time, so she pitched it outside. I asked her if she wanted it back and she said no that I could keep it. Cat number 3.

At the beginning of this year, same family of neighbors had a kitten that they didn't take care of, so my husband and I would feed her. One morning it was freezing cold outside and my husband and I found her in front of our house and she was badly injured. We brought her inside and took care of her and healed her up. The neighbors eventually moved away, but they never did ask us if we had seen their kitten. She is now cat number 4.

Both of the cats we have now were strays that started hanging around our back yard. We put a lot of food out in our back yard, such as peanut butter sandwiches for the squirrels, seeds for the birds, etc... so it's usually like a zoo back there all day.

Each of our cats were really skinny when we got them, and were lingering around looking for things to eat when we would put out food. I'm happy to say they are both healthy now, in fact the one is way overweight, lol.

Our cat turned up in our garden a few months after our dog passed away. I adore cats but our old dog very much didn't! So that meant we had to discourage them from our garden and so on.

This cat didn't look underfed at all, so we assumed somebody already owned him. But of course, after we made a fuss of him, he continued to hang around, so we'd let him chill in the garden, but not in the house. Then one night it was raining pretty bad, and he was sat under a garden chair looking pitiful and mewling, so we really had no choice but to let him in I'm so glad we did because he's so adorable.