Sapphire is the alpha cat at our home. She is a “ragdoll” with blue eyes.

She is probably about 8 years old. Becky, our neighbors girlfriend, gave her to us. Becky was working at a vets for the summer and someone left Sapphire at the door of the clinic, so she brought her over. She was really shy. She hid in closets and behind the bookcase and less than a week after she arrived, she escaped from the house by pushing through a screen on a window I had left open.

At that time we had a big overgrown lot across the street - almost a full acre - and Sapphire went to live there apparently. It was almost six months later before we saw her in our yard again and we started to make friends using pieces of chicken and turkey as bribes. Finally after weeks she let us touch her. We noticed then that she was pregnant. We worried that she would have her kittens in the wild lot and we would have a whole litter of feral kittens on our hands.

But just about a week before they arrived she decided to follow us into the house. And then one evening she decided to stay in for the night. I put an old towel in the bottom of a cardboard box, set it in the hall closet, and showed it to Sapphire. That night around midnight something woke me from my sleep and I got up to investigate. I looked in the closet and there was Sapphire with the first of her three little kitties.

You would not believe now that Sapphire was ever a feral cat or how difficult it was to get her to let us touch her. She loves to be carried and sit in laps.