Meet Whitey
This stray cat heard me filling my cats’ bowl at 5:00 AM one morning about 5 weeks ago and came rushing up the back hill meowing. When I brought a handful of food out to him, he wanted attention as much as the food, alternately purring up a storm as he was petted and scarfing down the food. Two cups later, he was full but had not had enough attention.
He showed up again later in the day and was quite vocal about wanting someone to come out and pet him. I’m pretty sure he’d been staying around my house for some time (I’d seen him from afar about a month before that) because there are lots of lizards in my yard. He was soon staying near the back door most of the day and night.
As he was neutered, and VERY friendly, it was obvious he was once someone’s cat. A check with all the local vets turned up no one reporting a lost white cat, nor were there any signs to be found in any nearby neighborhoods. While I was gone, my house-sitter kept feeding him and named him. My two weren’t thrilled about seeing him in the back but didn’t hiss at him through the window, as they have when other cats have wandered by.
Today, I took Whitey to see the vet and get the needed shots. He is Feline Leukemia negative, fortunately, had no fleas (also fortunately), very clean ears and great teeth. He is probably about 2-3 years of age. While Whitey wasn’t thrilled about getting into the cat carrier, or the car ride to the vet, he was a model of insouciance at the vet. He was quite content to lay around and purr, nothing and no one bothering him in the least. The vet was very impressed, saying he was definitely 1 in a 1,000 in that regard.
Whitey loves to be picked up and purrs almost all the time one is around him. He is, at present, resting comfortably in the garage until I figure out what to do with him. (I’m trying to convince a couple of friends they need this beautiful, friendly cat.) I have a feeling that he will soon be inside the house here. I need another cat like a hole in my head, but…
P.S. I took out a litter box pan, with litter in it, placed him in it and he promptly sat down in it and purred. I’m not at all sure understands the concept. He was still there when I took out the cat bed seen in the picture. Fortunately, he does prefer the cat bed and has been sleeping contentedly in it, and not the litter box, all afternoon. I guess I shall soon know if he does recall the proper use of a litter box.
Ambiance 
Icepick said,
October 23, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Don’t be so certain that he doesn’t have a home nearby. My Mom & brother ended up adopting a couple of stray kittens a few years ago when the mother brought four newborns into Mom’s back yard. Two of the kittens died young, but the other two survived. One day after weening the mother just wandered off. So Mom and Mike started taking care of them.
The two cats remained out door cats (although they ended up getting both vaccinations and shots) for the next few years. Mom & my brother made sure they had food and water and attention, and a warm room to stay in on cold nights. (Not many in Central Florida, but there are a few each year.) A couple of years ago these two cats also got “adopted” (meaning the same arrangement as with Mom) by a neighbor a few houses up. The cats milked THAT system for over a year before the two sets of adoptive parents knew what was going on. My brother and I managed to turn the two siblings into actual pets. Unfortunately, one of them got run over by an ambulance about a year ago. Around that time the last remaining cat moved into Mom’s house when the neighbor moved away. And right now Nibsy is sitting on my computer desk as I’ve been cat-sitting her for my Mom the last few weeks.
She’s a very friendly cat, and once I convinced her of the pleasures of being a lap cat she has been quick to hope up onto any lap that’s available. But the point is that at one point she had two separate household doting on her, each thinking that this poor cat and her brother were all alone in the world. Cat’s are natural scam artists, with those solemn faces and those big eyes and the purring….
So you might want to ask around the neighborhood before sending this cat off elsewhere….
(Sorry, I’m sure this is rambling, but I’m too tired to edit the thing.)
amba12 said,
October 24, 2009 at 10:04 am
White cats are often deaf, especially if they have blue eyes. (His look green, but I can’t be sure.) If so, he’d need extra protection from cars and things he couldn’t hear coming.
Donna B. said,
October 24, 2009 at 10:31 am
Ahh, such a beautiful cat. He reminds me of Snowball, a cat that adopted my husband at a construction site years ago. After feeding him for several days, he brought him home.
Snowball was an outdoor cat – the kind that would drive you crazy if you didn’t open the door for him. Every evening he set up just as much of a howl to get back inside. His favorite game was to curl up in a flowerpot just outside the front door and leap and hiss at whoever came out, just to see them jump. He never bit or scratched anyone.
One cold winter night, he didn’t come back. I called and walked the neighborhood looking for him. The street we live on is wilderness on one side and after a few days, I figured he wondered back there and the coyotes got him.
One evening, a month later, I hear meowing at the front door… and there he is. Skinny, dirty, and his right front paw a bloody swollen mess. I fed him and he curled up on the couch (bloody paw an all!) and went to sleep.
I took him to the vet the next day who said it looked like he’d got his paw caught in a trap. He stayed there for several days on IV antibiotics and wound care. When I got him home, I thought surely he’ll become an inside cat now! Only for few weeks until his paw (now missing toes and claws) healed.
Then it was the same old routine. He was with us another 3 years before he disappeared again.
I wish I was close enough to adopt Whitey!
Melinda said,
October 24, 2009 at 11:47 am
Aww!
My original two cats that I adopted in 1985 were all-whites, and litter-mates. One of them was deaf, and very feisty. She lived to be almost 20 years old!