Entrant's First Name
Nan

City
Fairview

My Story
In the spring and summer of 2009, my husband and I were still living in Chicago. I was working full time, and we were managing a feral colony of about 13 cats. One by one, we were trapping them, having them spayed or neutered, and releasing them back into the group. Most of the cats were toms – some of them fairly beaten up looking. Life on the streets of Chicago can be tough. But in this rough and tumble group was one young, pretty tabby female we had had no luck in trapping.

Something bad was happening to the ferals. The colony was dwindling. It could have been the mothers and nannies from the playground across the street complaining to animal control about them using the woodchips in the playground as a litter box, or it could have been the cars on the very busy street one block over, or it could have been the poison that some of the restaurants put out to deter rats, or it could have been the coyotes that lived in the nearby cemeteries, or it could have been something else entirely. We just didn’t know.

As summer turned to fall and fall to winter, the group was down to just a few, including the little tabby girl. They all knew where to get food and would wait a safe distance away when I came home from work and refilled the food and water bowls. We had named them, and I would talk to them while I was outside. The brave little tabby took to peering out at me from under the steps of our back deck, closer than the rest.

On one particularly cold and snowy day, I decided I couldn’t stand it anymore and went out with a cat carrier (not our usual humane trap) and some particularly delicious morsels of food to see if I could convince her to trust me. I opened the carrier and placed the dish of yummy food inside while I tried to sweet talk her from under the steps. To my complete surprise, she suddenly strutted out from under the steps and walked right into the carrier!

That was the beginning of her life as an indoor kitty. She was in heat, and she had ear mites, and she was cold and skinny, but she was otherwise healthy. She came into our house to be greeted by two older male cats that she accepted (and who accepted her) without much ado. She had plenty of street cred and wasn’t about to be intimidated by a couple of mere boys! We named her Sissy, in honor of her two “brothers” and because each of our mothers had been known by that nickname by their siblings.

Sissy is now a North Carolina kitty and has three younger “brothers”. These days, she has zero interest in the outdoors aside from sitting in the sun bird watching, and she’d much rather spend her time curled up inside of dad’s jeans on the bed or stretched out in front of the fireplace. She likes nothing better than to tell you (and tell you, and tell you...) about her day and her adventures playing with her "brothers" and her favorite toys.

Our brave little feral turned out not to be so feral after all, and we couldn’t love her more.

Now she hopes that you will help other homeless animals like she was find their forever homes by voting for her as WNC Pet of the Year!