I had a cat that literally broke into my family's house, he was our neighbor's cat, so we put him back out and thought he went home. This repeated several times.
We eventually found out our neighbors threw him out in favor of keeping a pitbull. The cat then moved in permanently.
The cat distribution system is broken in my area. There are almost no strays, we were "hunting" for one for a couple of months until we decided to go to a petsmart to adopt our boy
The prevalence of coyotes and other predators in my rural mountain town means that there are effectively zero strays around me. We had to drive an hour plus from our house to a shelter at the closest "big" city to adopt our latest.
I just got one that way, sweet little thing. Already had one cat, that my daughter begged and pleaded for, said "no" because we have 2 dogs already, finally relented on the condition that, "if the dogs kill the cat, you can't hold it against them because dogs are gonna dog, and they were here first."
One dog absolutely fell in love with the cat and they're inseparable now, and the other dog didn't give a fuck either way. Then suddenly door cat shows up and adorabled its way into our lives...
Found my little gremlin in a bush outside a store when she was a kitten. Poor thing had part of her ear missing. From a recent attack/fight of some kind. She's been with me for 5 years now.
No it wasn't at all. The cat was attacked, was very obvious bcz it was like part of her ear was ripped off, and it was a female cat that still had her lady parts, which we later spayed.
All 5 of my cats were strays/born from strays. Plus there's another 10 strays outside near my place that I've been taking care of, and sheltering from the cold.
And I'm not even a cat person. I've been pussy whipped by their cuteness.
Edit: Seriously, it's impossible to say no to something like this.
Also, can we take a moment to appreciate how cats domesticated us, not the other way round? A cat is basically the only animal that can barge into your home and say ‘I live here now’ and instead of freaking out and shooing it out the door, many of us will say ‘welp, I guess we have a cat now’ and go out to buy food and toys.
They’re pretty exceptional when it comes to taking full advantage of our parenting instincts.
Found ours in a parking lot, with her neck torn up to shreds, one of her toes broken, and a gash on one of her back legs. We also thought that she was well fed... she wasn't. She was very skinny and pregnant.
Took thousands of dollars in vet bills, and about 11 months to heal her back up to full + 5 years to figure out that she has an autoimmune disease that causes her skin to flare up and become very itchy and uncomfortable. She will be on meds for the rest of her life + always wear a neck protection band and a shirt to keep her from tearing herself up again. It is all worth it though, because she is the sweetest little fur ball in existence. Worth every penny, all effort.
Mine had a similar situation with itchy skin with neck protections and everything, turns out it was flea allergy and just using revolution regularly fixed the problem altogether, I can't recommend it enough. Revolution not only kill flea but it also combat the flea allergy.
Me and my grandpa have gotten nearly all our cats from the fact that people just abandon their cats at his old barn. His farm has effectively turned into a cat sanctuary.
Found my cat when she jumped on the hood of my car after I parked! Saw this friendly thing several times, and neighbors said she was just a stray. When the nights got colder, I would let her come inside when I came home, but let her out again the next morning, when it was warmer. Eventually, I got a litter box and stopped letting her outside... She knew what she was doing!
I've been adopted by a stray in my apartment complex. Every time he sees me he sprints over and climbs up my pants to get pets. My dogs get jealous as they watch us from my bedroom window.
We have had four dogs. Still currently have two. Three of those times, we said, "we should get [another] dog!" and then went to the pet store and got the stuff we needed and to the animal shelter and got a dog. We did look at rescuer websites one of those four times before we got a dog. So it wasn't exactly finding one in the trash, but we didn't prepare for months either.