One Saturday while we were in the carport cleaning up the Yellow Goat, a small tortoise-shell cat walked up and introduced herself. She was vocal and friendly and made it clear that since we were between dogs at the time, there was room in our home for a cat. None of our neighbors 'fessed up to ownership, so we invited her to join our family. We called her Zin - like in Zinfandel or however you spell it, I am not a wine person - and she settled in immediately. It was a little unsettling at first, I mean she moved in and was right away comfortable with us and acted like she had always belonged there.
Zin was a great pet. She had a sweetness about her and not a bit of attitude. She tolerated the boys and was a comforting, purring companion. She had two litters of kittens while we had her. She was a real joy to watch with her little kitties; she wrapped them up in her front legs like a hugging mama and purred to them and made cooing sounds. I never saw a cat act like that before. She made pretty kitties, too. Gray tigerstripes, a Russian Blue, marmalade long-hairs, lots of varieties. And when she had kitties at home, she always tried to bring them presents...baby rabbits, birds and mice. She new that wasn't allowed; she had tried to bring us presents before. So she stood at the back door with her cheeks puffed out, a mouse tail trailing out of her mouth, and made muffled meows...trying to smuggle something for the kids.
One of Zin's kitties that we kept was a jet-black medium-hair that grew into a monster huge cat. He had a crinkled-up face as a kitten so we named him Kitty Kong. Little did we know that he would live up to his name. Kong was a different kind of cat. Zin was seven or eight pounds MAX...Kong was more like 15 pounds. On one occasion he was lying on the sofa and #2 son, about 4 years old at the time, flopped down on the sofa in front of him, pinning Kong to the back of the sofa. Kong put all four paws on #2's back and pushed him off the sofa.
Kong didn't play like other cats. He was affectionate in his own way, and enjoyed a sincere head-scratching, but he was "cool"...and just a little aloof. We made "cat-catchers" to play with. A stick and a string with something crinkly and bright on the end of the string. Cats love'em. You have seen cats paw at a toy and get all wound up and jump around. Kong didn't. He bunched up and watched the cat-catcher until he was ready then he would strike, not the pawing swipe most cats did, but more like a boxer's straight jab. His paw would shoot out like lightning, snag the bright part, tear it loose and run off with it. His voice was spooky. He would meow like any cat in un-stressed situations. But when a dog or rival cat were around, he made noises that were deeper and sounded more like a mountain lion than a house cat. He was every bit the equal to his mom in the hunting department, I really expected to find a baby deer in the back yard some day. Unfortunately, Kitty Kong's thick black shiny coat proved to be his undoing; he was invisible in the night. We heard him making his spooky noises on the back porch one night and found him mortally wounded out there. Vet said it was most likely a car; Kong had extensive internal damage. I figured it had to be a car. I don't think there was an animal around who could take Kong.