Mister Mittens was a feral cat. She's a "domesticated" housecat for a year now but survived being a kitten outside and growing up in the "wilds" of Nassau County, New York. Dr. Wallach thinks she's two now and got pregnant before she hit her first birthday. She had four kittens and my wife and I kept her and two kittens. She was de-wormed from the street, loaded up with vaccinations, and gutted to be spayed at some expense.

Here's the deal - she's a wonderful girl but unlike her kids Trouble the tomcat and her daughter Shiloh she still has a touch of "outside" in her. She is not into cat toys or jerking around with anything humans provide to her for her amusement. She is into laying into a cat perch window and staring at the street. When we open a door here we have to make sure that she's not looking to gallop outside.

Up on my lap in the recliner on a non-racing day I rub her ears, the muscles behind her neck into her shoulders, the sides of her face. If I grab her head with one hand and start rubbing her underneath her chin with the other she closes her eyes and purrs like a bad set of bagpipes.

If I pet her down her flanks or along her back she will nip me with a bite that doesn't break skin and raise a front paw with all it's claws out but she doesn't get nasty. If I begin to rub her again behind her head and work her shoulders her head goes down and her eyes close.

I'm thinking she had a tough pull as a female street cat but I'm dumber than a bag of hammers. I was 60 before I could read a book about girls and it had me weak at the knees.

Anyway, I snapped Mister Mittens this evening. I'm here in this house since 1978 but if Mister Mittens is somewhere to be alone you're not going to find her. And she's not going to play with anybody's cat toys:

Mr Mittens is looking very good.

If Mr M didn't have a good dose of 'tude...she wouldn't have survived on the street.

Mr M may have a "sensitive" spot on her body or memories of a bite on a fight.
Or she is just fussy where she allows "human pets".

She goes nuts with happiness, Wooley, if you "scrub " her shoulders hard while she's in your lap. If she's laid out and you pass by and try to pet her shoulders while passing by she can flash some claws. You won't get ripped or bitten but you understand that a message is there from someplace in her past.

She is not a vicious cat and she is a good girl but I understand that she is not like her son and daughter. She's got some memories as a young girl in the street and they're probably not all good. Dr. Wallach told us that when Mister Mittens first went "into season" she probably mated and was roughed up by two tomcats at least and that the two "mostly white" kittens and the two dark striped dark kittens were probably from two different fathers. Cats keep going on like that and I understand the plan from Mom Nature - keep breeding, somebody's going to keep living.