Taking the advice of this Neil Gaiman poem, we’ve started feeding a stray cat. He was in pretty pitiful shape–thin and raggedy and beat up–and Toby wasn’t too bothered by him on the other side of the glass. So Doc and I looked at each other and said, “What’s the worst that can happen? We get an outside cat. Let’s do it.”
He shows up pretty regularly for his breakfast and dinner, but he still disappears under the deck when we go outside with food. We’ve made him a little feral house, too, but so far he’s not going in to it.
The twelve-year-old girl in me wants desperately to make this wild creature my special friend and have him trust me, but we’ll see. Just making sure he’s fed and warm is enough, too.