Meet Cute: The Cats

Crow
Toby

I know, they don't look very happy. But these little buggers also don't like sitting still for photos and when you try to make them even for 2 seconds it takes to snap a picture so they put their ears back and get antsy when they're not allowed to move :/

Either way, these are our cats. Crow and Toby are their short names, officially they keep with the theme of naming our pets for characters as with the rats and therefore they are are Warden Inquisitor Crow and Tobias Hawke after my favorite game series, Dragon Age.

My roommate @bluebeaniejean had rented our current apartment complex in April of 2017 and I moved in on May 6th. During that time Jean heard that someone had cats and had either moved away or died and had left cats in the apartment. When the maintenance guys came to clean the place up they let the cats out, and they were just running around.

We felt bad for them and began to leave food out in our yard, followed by some cardboard boxes for warmth since it was a semi-cold spring, especially at night. Over the weeks we started to wonder what would happen if we opened our back door and let them come in and out as they pleased while we were home. After all, they had been someone's pets so maybe they would be comfortable indoors.

Lo and behold, they waltzed right in and made themselves at home. So we started giving them wet cat food and treats so they began to see us and the apartment as something good. We bought toys on poles and strings to play with them so they could gain confidence that the space was theirs.

Crow had a wound on his left hip, but at some point they were captured for trap, neuter, return efforts and thankfully Crow was stitched up and they were both neutered. The notches taken out of their ears are a result of that, a marker just in case they were still wild and trapped again the people could know to just release them instead of taking them back to be fixed if they didn't have any obvious wounds.

Somewhere late May or early April (I'm unsure of the exact date) we decided one evening to shut the back door while they were in the apartment. Neither one flipped out or tried to run for the door or anything, they just sat there and looked at us and we had cats.

They took to using a litter box well, they never wanted to claw any of our furniture, and while they still want to go outside if we open the back door it's pretty easy to just put them up in their kitty carriers when we have to open the door and leave it at that.

We call them brothers because our observation was that Toby would hunt and bring food to Crow since he was injured and unable to hunt as he normally would. They didn't seem to want social interaction with any of the other strays around here, and we were in touch with the woman who was responsible for organizing their trap, neuter and return effort that handled them and she said they were captured together and while in recovery hung around one another and didn't want anything to do with her other cats who were also recovering before being released. So while we're not entirely sure they are related per say, because of the strong bond they clearly have with one another we think it's like people and they've chosen to be brothers and we call them as such.

Crow is the more uppity of the pair. He wants love, but only on his terms and sometimes only if Toby is getting love first and he gets a little jealous. When our dog tries to play with him Crow plays back instead of running, but he plays without claws or anything else and is really nice. He doesn't like to be held too much, and grumps more than his brother especially when I have to trim their claws, but he's a good boy. Except for when he decides to chew on the fire wood we have in the house, anyway.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but Toby is the chubby one. He likes his food, and if given a chance he'll eat anything bread related we leave sitting about. I'm serious - he's eaten hamburger and hot dog buns I've left out to thaw and he tore open plastic packaging to eat some bread rolls we had at one point. If we try to feed these guys their wet food and don't lock them in separate areas (like in their own kitty carriers) Toby will scarf his down and then go and eat Crow's because Crow eats slower. He's also the more affectionate one, too. He'll come and seek our attention and want love and all that and he's just a big ball of purrs and love.

Bonus; here's a picture I shot a few days ago with my phone of the two of them sleeping on our dog's bed in our office while said dog was put up for the night. They seem to love the cushy surface and will sleep or lay on it given any chance they get. They're at least a little bit more in their 'natural environment' as opposed to the sadly staged photos above where they're all stiff because they don't want to hold still XD

Any further questions about these two are entirely welcome, we don't know their entire history but I'll do my best to answer as best I can <3