One day Baby Girl was meowing constantly from her "apartment" in The Magoo Room. This was unusual for her, so I opened the door to see what the problem was. There, along with Baby Girl, was a strange grey cat. He had apparently climbed the anticlimb (!) fencing, walked up the ramp, in the pet door, and made himself at home!  After contacting the local rescue groups, and posting a "Found" notice at the entrance to our subdivision, we were unable to locate STRANGER’S owners. Of course he has now been neutered and received all appropriate veterinary care. He is a funny cat, in that he is very possessive of his food, and will hiss or paw at me when I remove an empty dish. He can be petted and picked up, but will bite if I try to scruff him. Obviously Stranger needs some socializing and I work with him daily to try to make him more adoptable. Stranger is only 2 years old, and cannot be a lifelong resident with us. I have found a local abuse investigator who will adopt him when some of her rescued animals are adopted and she has room for Stranger. Meanwhile Stranger has a home with his favorite: LOTS of food. He shows no inclination to climb the fence and roam the streets again. Thank goodness!

Stranger update - December 2011:  There is a saying that cats and children make liars out of us, and this was true in Stranger's case.  In October 2011 he climbed the anti-climb fencing and went walkabout once more.  Fortunately his wandering was short lived and 10 days after his disappearance a neighbor reported that he was behind her garage.  I took a carrier with me to fetch Stranger back home, but he wanted no part of it.  Instead he ran home, climbed the fence, went up the ramp and inside the pet door again!  Knowing that this vagabond nature could easily return, I phoned the abuse investigator to see if she was ready for Stranger yet.  She had no place for him except for in a cage, which was not acceptable to either of us.  Then we hit upon a brilliant solution.  Margaret and I worked out a trade!  She took Stranger and I took Valiant, a 6-8 year old female cat.  Stranger now has the opportunity to be in a home where there are no boy cats to teach him to spray and thereby become unadoptable, and I have an older cat more suited to be loose in the Magoo Room.  It's not absolutely perfect, but it works!  The last I heard Margaret found Stranger being escorted around (inside) her house over the shoulder of her granddaughter.  Maybe all he needed to curtail his wandering ways was a little girl to spoil him!

 Click here to meet Valiant.