By Ann Robson

June is cat adoption month. We’ve been involved in three cat adoptions but with a twist: the cats adopted us.

Charlie was our first tabby who showed up at our doorstep, skinny, hungry and thirsty. We were delighted but chose to put some food and water on the porch for him just in case he was merely lost. We didn’t want to become attached to someone else’s pet. Soon it became apparent that Charlie had chosen our home to be his new one and we warmly welcomed him into the house.

We took him to a vet for a checkup, shots and neutering, and there was no doubt that he was ours. He took to inside living very well and only occasionally went back outdoors. When he did it was usually to bring me back a present in the form of a dead mouse, a bird and even a fish almost his size. He would deposit these treasures on the front step so I’d be sure to be shocked when I found them.

My theory about his occasional hunting is that since he did this only when my husband was out of town, he was proving his manly protective abilities. Basically I’m a chicken when it comes to critters, alive or dead, so our young daughter would grab a snow shovel and give the treasures a watery burial in the Oswego River, where she reasoned the food chain would take care of disposal.

Unfortunately for Charlie, during one of his excursions he was hit on the road and didn’t survive. Although he’d been ‘ours’ for only a few years, all three of us were mightily upset.

A few years later, after we’d lost a beloved puppy to another road accident, Boots showed up. We repeated the food and water routine. One very rainy night with lightning and thunder, our daughter came in and knocked on my husband’s sleeping head to wake him. She could hear a cat meowing outside and knew that she had to save it. So, father and daughter in full rain gear with flashlights went out to save the cat. After a good drenching and about an hour’s search, they were heading back into the house when the meowing became louder. They found her hiding behind the dog house and brought her in. We wrapped warm towels around her until she stopped shaking then gave her a comfy spot to sleep and she was part of the family for the next 10 years, never going outside again. We moved from our rural New York setting to Cleveland and then to Kentucky and Boots came as part of the family, sitting atop our clothing in the back of a station wagon looking quite regal. After three years in Kentucky, she became filled with cancer and we did the humane thing.

I vowed there would be no more cats in the house. We were going to be empty-nesters, were considering retirement in a few years and no cat was going to tear up my heart again.

On my 50th birthday a true waif of a tabby kitten appeared. She was small, abused, scarred and not sure about people. We did the food and water outdoor thing for a week then one night when I was alone she hopped from the porch floor about six feet to the kitchen window sill and gave me such a sad look that I opened the door and in she scooted. I decided an appropriate name would be “5-0” and for the next 14 years she was ours.

I have wondered over the years whether, since all three cats looked and acted very similar, was it one cat with three lives, or did we have three cats who had a collective 27 lives?

We had almost 30 years of wonderful tabby companions so I guess their adoption plan worked.