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I had lived 40 years without a cat. I didn't need a cat. I didn't want a cat.

My preschool daughter, however, desperately wanted a cat.

Our yard fence backed onto a city park and many mornings one summer a large gray and white cat sat on it watching the birds and other small wildlife. It eventually became clear that he was also watching us. Neighbors we hardly knew moved out that fall in a state of great disarray which we assume involved a divorce. I desperately want to be charitable and believe that each party thought the other took the cat, rather than that he was intentionally left behind.

The morning I opened the door to find my daughter crushing dog food and mixing it with bits of cheese to feed this cat, I knew I was about to have a cat. We visited the vet and determined he was not a pregnant female. He was a well fed neutered male about 5 years old who had been feasting on the park critters when he became homeless. We tried hard to make him an indoor only cat, but he did not fall for that, insisting on going out every morning and evening to check his territory.

We named him Hex, acknowledging he had put a hex on me to stay. He endeared himself to all of us and stayed for eleven years before he crossed the Rainbow Bridge. We still think of him as a "cat's cat" who knew everything there was about being an outside cat as well as everything about being a snuggly indoor cat. None of the cats who followed him, fairly willingly becoming indoor cats, have compared in these respects.

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Story submitted by Susan from xenia, OH.

This story was originally shared on The Animal Rescue Site. Share your very own rescue story here!