When we lived in San Francisco, my wife was driving along the 880 near Oakland and saw a kitten huddled on the median of the fast lane. Sure, enough, she pulled off and re-entered the area, pulled over, got the kitten, and neither of them died instantly in a fiery crash! The kitten had such a badly mangled rear leg, that it had to be amputated. Through the whole ordeal, every time my wife or I got within three feet of her, she'd just start purring like she had no cares in the world.
Of course, we kept her; and we named our three legged cat "Eileen."
Over time, her musculature changed, kind of making her a tripod cat, with her one rear leg looking very "centered."
She could haul ass, too. She was faster running than our other cats, but she was crap when it came to trying to jump up on things - a perfect cat!
When we mover to las Vegas, our sister in law babysat the cat and feel in love, so we let her stay with her, but I still love her. She's a great cat.
As karma would have it, within the first couple of months after we moved to Las Vegas, and friend of ours was driving through the big interchange here on a 115 degree day and, wouldn't you know it, saw a little black kitten huddled on the median of the fast lane. Yup, she, too, risked life and limb and rescued the kitten and drove straight to our house.
The kitten must have been thrown from a car, because all the flesh under its chin had been peeled off its jaw, and it had lots of high velocity "degloving" skin trauma. My wife said the kitten had the highest temperature she'd ever measured on a living animal.
Well, "it" turned out to be "Otto." Get it, like auto? ;)
Anyway, Otto is now a 20 pound wonder cat who lives to sniff ears and get petted. He looks like a small pure black panther.
OK, OK, one last one...
At the T.H.E. Show in 2005, it was unnaturally cold, even snowing...
One rainy and frigid afternoon, a feral cat strolled into our demo room and just hung out. There were other littermates in the alley but they were truly feral. This one would go and hang with them, then stroll back to get petted and purr over the sound.
The security guard recognized the cat, but said that he had never seen it be friendly to humans before.
The cat came back the next evening, and was out in the courtyard as we ended the day at about 0100. It was raining and cold, and I had "coincidentally" brought a cat carrier to the show that day, and "Diva" (because we were playing Apogees for that week) is now my favorite cat of all time. She is afraid of nothing, and is Otto's boss. He loves her and they snuggle together when they sleep.
Wow, long rant. Sorry!
Thanks for the great topic. I wish I could have met your bird!
