Bob, as we came to call him, is a stray that we had been feeding since late last year. He would arrive daily, morning and evenings. Especially after he discovered that he could eat there. As the winter approached, J added a heated and padded kennel to the catio, so he'd have a warm place out of the wind and weather. He didn't use it daily, but he was a frequent guest.

Fast forward to 2019. Bob was still coming around, eating and, usually, just hanging out with our other cats. The interesting thing about him was that, although he wouldn't let us touch him or pick him up, he would come inside the house, look around and lay down for a short while. On several occasions, he would even go upstairs and investigate one of the bedrooms. It was hard not to think that he once had a furever home but had gotten lost or had been dumped.

One day in June, we didn't see him for about 5 days and when he did show up, he was limping and carrying a back leg. He seemed to be in pain, but cats excel at hiding such things. Short version; we had some feline tranquilizers left over from one of our other cats, so we put a small amount in his food for a couple of meals. It relaxed him enough that he let us pick him up and bring him inside.

A trip to our veterinarian revealed that he had been struck by a car and the impact had dislocated his left rear leg, tearing the retaining tendon, and had broken the leg in several places. We didn't think he deserved to be euthanized just for bad luck so, the leg came off along with part of his tail due to nerve damage. He was vaccinated, fixed and chipped and sent home to heal. He gets around quite well on 3 legs and once that medieval collar could be removed, he was able to embark on his new life.

He is living his best life and doesn’t let his missing leg slow him down. He gives as well as he gets with our other cats and navigates our catwalk’s ladder with ease.