Kevin and Mayan's story

Nowadays, these two kitties are living it up at the sanctuary, but once upon a time they nearly ended up on the streets

Author: Arloa Chadwick

2019, Kevin partakes in Christmas Festivities

Years ago, a lady in a neighboring town was moving to a place where she couldn't bring her cats. Of course she was incredibly distraught, as she had lived with the cats since they were kittens. She could only find a new rental space which did not allow cats. She assumed she could easily find a home for the sweethearts, after all, they were little angels... at least to her. After a few weeks she had only had questions about if they had been neutered, and they had not. No one was saying they wanted them, so she, of course, started to get nervous. Several more days and a few more increasingly desperate posts. Finally, the day before she moved, someone was willing to give them a home: us! We had been watching the posts for weeks, and had been thinking we ought to rescue them, but we decided to give them a chance. We figured such sweet kitties would get a home soon... but they didn't. We knew then that we had to act- and fast. We picked them up the night before she moved- a bit late some might say, but better late than never. It took her almost an hour to get them caught and put in the crates we had brought with us. The poor lady was incredibly relieved because she was starting to think she would have to set them free on the streets, an option which she was very much disliking.

We brought them home, and tried to get them comfortable. But they were having none of it! They were quite mean and resentful, screaming and spitting whenever we were in their sight. We tried to say hi to them, but they would hide in the basement all day and only come out to go to the litter box when we had gone to bed. We were starting to wonder if we would have to re-home them to the city shelter or another rescue, but we decided to neuter them to give them the best chance at adoption. But that meant we had to catch them! It took several days, and several appointment cancels because we just couldn’t catch them, but eventually but we got them loaded up and took them to the vet.

2019, Mayan checks out an abandoned lamb we brought in for bottle feeding.

When we brought the cats back home, as they healed up we noticed that they were not running from us any more and had actually become really, really sweet, and even wanted to cuddle. What a transformation! Why did they get so sweet? We still don't know, maybe they decided we were better than the vet? We'll never know for sure, but after that they started treating us as family. Mayan started coming and sitting on our laps while we watched TV, (Something which he still does to this day) and cuddling with us at night, almost like a little teddy bear! Kevin started letting us touch him and snuggle him, and even started coming over for love when we were petting the dogs. We think he might actually think he is a dog, that would sure explain how comfortable he is around them! Even though these cats have had a rough start with us, they now spend their days cuddling their caretakers, watching birds out the window, and frisking about, batting around anything they find interesting. Having no clue how close they came to being ally cats.