Thread by @mel_asks

@Twm1958 When we married and bought our first house, a tuxie cat waited on the porch as we pulled up. She let us pet her, but when we invited her in the house, she moved to the far end of the patio.

When we entered the kitchen, there were stacks of canned cat food and

two bags of dry with a large note explaining that they had trapped all the ferals and rehomed them except this one. They explicitly stated the cat came with the house but adamantly wanted to stay outside and escaped all efforts to be trapped. The note begged us to feed her.

After a few weeks, she showed up in the garage. As the sun set, she left the garage but screamed and howled at the closed door several hours. My husband finally opened the door and she marched in with a kitten in her mouth, which promptly joined two other kittens.

We made a makeshift bed with towels. She threw a fit every time we closed the door so next day, we installed a cat flap. Although we fed all of them, she continued hunting for her kittens.

Once they got older, we adopted out the kittens withe the local vet’s help.

When the first one left, she howled for hours in the back yard so we made sure she saw the second one leaving with a happy family. This time, she rubbed against our legs and gave head bumps every time she saw us.

By then, she decided to venture in our house. We hesitated because we had a house cat, Bianca, who was aggressive to other cats. However, when Zulu walked in (we named her by then), she immediately sniffed noses with Bianca, who backed off without hissing.

Bianca apparently acknowledged Zulu as the owner of the house.

Soon, Zulu brought in Blacky, the only kitten left.

I shut the door and Zulu immediately attacked me, shredding my pant legs! I opened the door and Zulu ran out.

When Blacky tried to follow, Zulu literally shoved him back inside with her front paw pushing him hard in his face, then frantically signaled to shut the door.

Zulu visited inside the house several more times, but kept shoving Blacky back inside when she left.

We consistently enticed her to stay inside but always with disastrous results when we wouldn’t let her out. She literally lost her mind if we refused to let her out. And every time, she shoved Blacky back in the house whenever he tried to follow her outside.

A few days before Halloween, my husband left for work and immediately returned with Zulu’s lifeless body. She died from being hit by a car. We wrapped her in a blanket, placed her in a box and buried her by a deer run at the back of our property.

We marked her grave with a special stone. Bianca, took over mothering duties with Blacky. Until Zulu, Bianca would have literally killed another cat. However, she took care of Blacky until she died. Blacky loved living inside with us and never roamed outside again.

When we moved, my brother-in-law bought the house and raised his family. They always had pets that loved this 2-acre rural property. As each pet passed away, my niece buried them by Zulu and made a lovely pet memorial cemetery.

When my niece married, my brother-in-law gifted them the house. They finally sold it last year to the recently married daughter of the Amish family who befriended all of us when we moved in. Both families always helped each other through the decades.

This Amish family knew about the pet cemetery and now this Amish daughter has taken over caring for it, creating a lovely flower garden surrounding the perimeter.

This is Blacky, who lived to be almost 20.