A neighbor's unfixed cat had litter after litter of kittens, almost all of them feral. During a particularly bad time in my life (I was recovering from open heart surgery), I fell in love with one her litters, that lived right beside our garage; those three kittens gave me something to distract me from myself. I started feeding them from the time they were about two months old, twice a day in all kinds of weather. My wife dug a trench through four feet of snow so we could put food out for them near their lair. We caught them and paid for their neutering and shots, but we were never able to tame them.
The tortie always came running when I brought out the dish of the day, then stood in my path and hissed at me. One day she simply didn't show up and we haven't seen her since. After about a year, the female tabby let me pet her, but she took off in search of territory of her own; we glimpse her every so often on the next block. That left their brother, a small, slightly deformed tabby who's been living in our backyard ever since. He'll let me get close sometimes, other times he runs like I'm the devil. If I try to touch him, he hisses. He's six years old now, and just this last year he finally came in the house to look around. He cased out the kitchen and the dining room, then walked back out the door. Even in winter he's showed no interest in coming back inside.
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