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I went out to the mailbox the other day, battling a fierce wind and falling snow, and saw paw prints. This isn’t unusual at our house, critters visit on a daily basis. But when I came back in the house and heard a cry outside, I knew.

The lovely stray cat we’d taken in, fallen in love with and then had to return to his owners? Was back.

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He was soaking wet, shivering and skittish…. but I managed to lure him into the barn with a bowl of food.

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The poor little guy. What the hell! Why was he out in the cold again?

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After two full tins of Fancy Feast, he jumped up on the pool table….

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And took a bath with the heat blowing straight on him.

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I left him warm, fed and comfortable…. and headed into the house to call his owner and rip her a new one.

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One not so polite phone call later she showed up with a carrier and swore she made a vet appointment for him to be neutered next week and has done her best to keep him in the house. But she also told me her husband opened the bedroom window a crack and the cat escaped. (Open window, with no screen, in Maine, in February? Not likely) She said he’d only been gone for an hour but our house is over a mile away so I doubt that too.

I swear if we hadn’t adopted Dudley…. I would have just kept him this time.

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