Gotta keep this thread out of the hands of the Chinese Plush Toy Manufacturers
O.K., I'll preface this by saying that it is not always possible but, when it is, we save what we can.
These are our `ditch' cats. We found the tortoise pelt when it was barely weaned, back in June of `07, sitting in the weeds just across from our driveway. I found the Manx, in a plastic bag with four dead sibs, in late October of `07, while out gleaning trash along the road.
Both are `fixed', indoor models: The Tortoise Shell is female, and tempermental. The Manx is male and is more like a CAT (heavy machinery) than a cat.
I used to have their mother a beautiful calico named Mow-Mow
The `pan-cat' is our female. She was only`hot' because we wouldn't toss her some Bluegill. She was about to shift into `Claw-Cat' mode when I took that shot.
By the way, her name is Mao-Mau (the `Chairman' of the `Tribe' )...
The Manx (Bear Cat) just pushes everything around or out of the way. Here he is with my daughter/granddaughter/wife. Picking him up to shift him where he doesn't want to be is not unlike struggling to shift a spinning gyroscope off its axis:
Here's my new stray Maine Coon Cat after the vet had to shave him to get all the burrs off him. ( I laugh at him all the time and call him my little lion kitty even though he's huge).
Here is Fred aka Blaze. He is 19 years old, almost 20 now. Adopted from our local Humane Society when he was a kitten. Fred has a very unique personality. You can pet him once, occasionally twice, but then look out because his purring quickly switches to an enormous claw in what ever body part he can reach first. He is a wonderful cat.
Willow is our 6 year old Manx with a stubby tail. She is a drooly purry girl, but if you want to pet her highness, you must come to her - she will not come all the way to you.
and Feral is our little tailess kitty - barely even a nub where a tail would be. She has issues due to lack of tail, but she is a wonderful girl! She prefers the outdoors most of the time, and killed her first mole at the tender age of 3 months old. She also taught Willow how to climb out of a tree! ( Willow used to be famous for getting stuck in trees, and we even had to hire a tree surgeon to climb up 70 feet to rescue her out of one of our fir trees once). We call Feral our little monkey cat, or spider kitty because of the way she walks.
This is our new kitty, Freddy with my son. He is 8 wks old. Someone was trying to find homes for kittens at the flea market and we had been looking for another as someone stole our lovely boy, Romeo and the kids were devastated. He's mostly siamese, from what we can tell, but he does not meow like a Siamese. He is a love sponge doll baby.
Here are Molly and May, our feral rescue barn cats. Tabby x Bengal.
Oreo
Romeo (who was stolen)
I adopted those two boys from a shelter that was closing down and all the animals were going to be put down that weren't adopted before the state came in. I'm so glad we went there that day and found these boys!