Happy Tails Books

The Winter Star

From "Lost Souls: FOUND! Inspiring Stories about Cats" (Coming Soon)


On an unusually cold afternoon, I sat reading a favorite book and spending some quality time with our five lovely rescued cats. I’d occasionally glance up to enjoy the beautiful, snowy landscape out our back window, and on this particular occasion I saw something move. Upon further inspection, I was amazed to discover it was a cat—a beautiful but skittish mix of black, orange, and white patches.

I immediately went into “rescue mode,” rushing around the house to find some cat food and empty bowls, while quickly pulling on my coat. With “equipment” in hand I slowly opened the back door to offer the cat a meal, but the startled cat ran quickly back into the woods. As I lowered the bowls I called out to the cat, gently assuring her I would not hurt her, and after a while I noticed her in the distance, peering timidly at me through the trees.

The cat seemed obviously feral—born in the wild with no human contact—because she didn’t have a collar and had no intention of approaching me. She had to be starving, so I placed the two bowls between where she was at the edge of the woods and where I could see her from inside. Then I went back into the house. The cat eventually approached the bowls tentatively and gobbled down all the food. It was clear that she was as nervous as she was hungry, so I knew I would only win her trust and be able to catch her if I took it slow. I decided to just refill the bowls again later and continue observing her from inside.

I repeated this routine of feeding and retreating for three snowy, icy days with the intention of luring her into a humane “Hav-a-heart” trap as soon as possible. She continued to come for my food and water daily as I watched from inside, but on the fourth, very cold, sleeting day, I noticed she appeared suddenly much larger than the day before. And then it hit me—she was pregnant! This realization sent me into a panic, and I decided that the time to trap her was now. Without further thought I grabbed my coat and flung open the back door, and in one amazingly smooth and fast motion, I scooped her up and plopped her onto our kitchen floor! I think we were both somewhat shocked, but fortunately my disoriented momma was still very hungry, so I rushed to get her a bowl of food and quickly put our cats in a separate room. She ate quickly and finished every bite, and truth be told, I was very lucky that she only bit into her food and not into my hand—she could have had rabies.

I spoke gently to her daily as I fed her high protein kitten food to help prepare her for her litter. Though she would still not let me pat her or come too close, she was obviously grateful for the free meals and shelter. A mere week later she found a corner of the living room and delivered six precious kittens! Two were orange tabbies and four were “torties” that looked like their momma, whom they all kept very busy between nursing and bathing activities.

I named my great, little momma cat “Star” because of the interesting star-shaped pattern on the top of her head. Star eventually began letting me pat her, but she still would not let me pick her up. So when it came time to take her to the vet to get spayed and updated on shots, we had to trap her with food in a big cat carrier instead of just placing her in one as we would with our other cats.

We decided to keep one kitten and seek forever homes for the others. Three were adopted via word of mouth, and things were going well for the litter until one day Star walked slowly toward me, carrying one of her kittens in her mouth. As she placed him at my feet I realized he hadn't made it, so sadly we buried him in our yard.

I would have loved to keep them all, but due to limited space and money, we couldn't. So a no-kill rescue an hour away agreed to take Star and the two remaining kittens into foster care. The kittens passed the only thing standing between them and their new foster homes, the “scruff test,” with flying colors, but during Star’s turn she let out an intimidating meow as she was picked up by the back of her neck. The girl holding her quickly put her down, and my fiancé (now husband) loves to repeat what the girl said next: “Torties tend to choose their owners, and we think you are the chosen one (for Star)!”

So the kittens stayed, and I packed Star back into the car and started on our long journey home to our house. I will never forget looking at Star and saying, “Are you happy now?” I think she was, and now Star is on the inside looking out instead of the outside looking in, sharing our home and hearts with our other wonderful cats.

By Helen Needham

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