Mine was in my freshman year of college. A couple of friends/classmates of mine rooming together (identical twins, so I guess that’s to be expected) found a sodden, mewling, hungry kitten behind the dorm cafeteria, where one worked as a night job. They took him in, named him Alley, and put him up in their room (against dorm policy; eventually Alley went to live with one of the fraternities, and hopefully lived a happy life).
Anyway, one afternoon not long after Alley moved in, I was in my friends’ room, alone - they’d had to step out, and I was waiting for them to return. With permission, I laid across one of the made beds, having nowhere else to sit, and having been up for long hours to boot. Up jumps Alley, who lays himself in the space betwen my upper arm and side, puts his head atop my shoulder joint, and falls asleep, purring. I know it’s 'cause he’s been lonely, and he’s happy to have warm bodies about.
Mine also involves cats.
I used to live in an apartment building with my (ex) boyfriend. The people downstairs had kittens they were trying to give away, and eventually they wore us down and we agreed to take one, although we already had 3. A friend of my boyfriend’s was visiting, and he took a kitten, too. We brought them into our apartment, and they were so scared, and tiny and pitiful… We all got to talking and after awhile we wondered where the kittens were. We found them curled up together in a corner, fast asleep.
Awwwww.
I had gone to check on a trap I had set near a feral colony, trying to make sure all of the cats were sterilized. As I approached the trap I could see that it was closed - but there was a kitten sitting beside the trap! This was usual, because I would very rarely see feral kittens unless they were in the trap - they were even more afraid of people than the adults. I fully expected the kitten to run away as soon as it saw me, but it didn’t. I didn’t have any gloves with me that day but decided to try to pick up the kitten anyway - bracing myself to get bitten or scratched.
No bites. No scratches. Purrs.
I didn’t have a carrier in the Jeep, so I held the tiny purring scrap of fur to my chest while I loaded the trap and drove it to the vet. I thought perhaps the cat in the trap was the mother of the waif I was holding - but that cat was male. The vet told me the kitten was about 4 weeks old and still needed formula, so I took her home to bottle raise with the intention of adopting her out when she was weaned.
When our cat was 6 weeks old, she got so happy and relaxed the first time we gave her warmed-up milk that she fell asleep right next to the bowl without falling over or anything–just crouched by the bowl, content as can be.
When I brought my (now 14 years old) cat home as a kitten for the first time, I was going to let her sleep in my bedroom. But she walked across my face (purring loudly) so she got picked up and put outside the bedroom door, where she meowed plaintively for a while. She settled down after a bit and so did I.
Then next morning I opened the door and there she was - curled up on the top step pressed tight against her master’s door. :-}
One I can recall right now is our young budgie hen, Scritch, spying a cockatiel egg lying on newspaper (not in a nest) in the bottom of the cockatiel cage. A cockatiel egg is small, but much too large for a budgie. Nevertheless, Scritch, who has never had her own offspring, knew what it was…an egg without a mommy!
She crept up to it, staring in rapt fascination. Stretching out her neck, she reached across the enormous egg with her hooked beak and began rolling it toward her with infinite gentleness. Raising her splayed (mildly deformed) right leg, Scritch tried to climb up onto the huge egg and sit on it.
But on a flat surface, the big egg rolled. Scritch rolled off. Undeterred, she spent minutes carefully climbing back up onto the egg and trying to balance on it, her soft blue feathers all fluffed out to warm it.
Eventually she sort of managed to stand over it. She soon gave up playing mommy to the big egg, but she does get nesting instincts periodically.
I would have thought it’d be more unusual for a kitten to be scared of humans than for one not to be.
We got our cat while I was out at work, so when I came home she wouldn’t have known who I was.
I entered the room where she was to stay with her cat litter and things (away from the dog too) and she immediately came out to see who I am and say helo to me. We spent an hour playing with bits of straw and my camera strap (while I tried to take pictures of her)
Feral (wild) kittens are extremely skittish of humans. It usually doesn’t take long to socialize them if you catch them young, but the process at first involves thick gloves.
Last summer our neighbor told us that there were some very young and ill kittens down in the woods. I drove down and left some food out for the kitties and came back a few hours later to check on them. A teeny, very sick grey kitten tottered out of the woods and followed me to my car, meowing very loudly. He planted himself at my feet and demanded I pick him up. I picked him up and put him in the car; he jumped onto the dashboard and we drove home: my “awwwwww” moment was seeing him curled up on the dash purring.
The rest is history . . . today that deathly ill little kitty is a gorgeous, healthy 13-lb cat who rules my roost.
Years ago the town we lived in had an evening newspaper rather than a morning one. It came at 5pm. The delivery boy would open our back storm door and drop the paper (rolled up and rubber banded) on the floor of the entry way.
The dog we had at the time would pick it up with his teeth and and bring it to us. Of course we’d pet him and say “good boy”. This went on for a long time.
One day the paper came, but the dog was outside in the back yard.
The large Chartreux cat we had butted that rolled up paper all the way across the house using his head. He pushed it right up to the chair I was sitting on at the dinner table. He sat up and made his trademark “peep” sound to get my attention.
Well, I have lots of awwww memories, but continuing the cat theme:
My mom’s (sort of, anyway) cat Spooky had her litter of kittens underneath the house. I came over to visit Spooky while Mom was at work. I sat cross-legged in the grass near the house, and she came out to be petted. After a while, she went back under the house and brought out a little gray-stripped kitten and put it in the hollow formed by my crossed legs. Then she went in and got a black-and-white kitten and put it in my lap. Talk about TRUST! I held and loved those kittens for some time, then she took 'em back under the house. So when it was time for them to go to new homes, I took a gray-striped kitten and a black-and-white kitten home with me. I’ll never know for sure I got the right two, since there were 2 grays and 4 black/whites, but I made the effort. The black-and-white female was Mischief, and the grey-stripe was Trouble, who I lost just a couple of years ago after 15 years.
Waking up the first morning after we brought our beloved CleoKatra home and having her bounce up on the bed with us, meowing, purring and kneading the blankets with sheer happiness.
When I was in college I was sitting in my apartment at my computer typing up a paper one night, with the patio door open a bit so I could see the snow storm outside. It was coming down in huge flakes, with no wind, quite beautiful actually. After a little while I heard a noise outside and looked out to see a kitten scratching on my screen door, covered in snow. I tried to get him to come in, but he wouldn’t come near me. I finally put some lunchmeat and tuna on a little plate and set it outside, and he pounced on it. After a little bit, another little kitten came up to the plate and ate. When they were done, the first kitten turned toward me and gave a little happy sounding mew, and then both of them wandered off back into the storm.
One of my friends used to volunteer for the SPCA taking in kittens that were too young to adopt and pregnant cats. One of the cats she took care of had 7 kittens. There were way too many awwww moments to describe, but one stands out. My friend was a bit of a neat freak and vaccuumed every day. Well, the mother cat was deathly afraid of the vaccuum cleaner, and as soon as she saw it she would bolt. All her kittens started doing this too, but out of immitation, and not fear. So one time she brings out the vaccuum and the mother vanishes, and all the kittens go running for the bed, and jump into the crack between the bed and the wall. After a second, we see 7 kitten heads with big curious eyes poke up from behind the bed, watching to see what would happen next. It was too cute for words.
Though I know some people who might disagree, I don’t there is any greater source of ‘Awwwww Storyies’ than kittens. And so, unsurprisingly enough, here’s another kitten one:
About a year or so ago Captain_C and were going to a LAN party. He drives over to my apartment to pick me up and as we are loading the car this tiny little kitten comes up to us. When I say tiny, I mean that this kitten could have easily fit into the palm of my hand. It was both tiny and incredible fluffy, essentially the most adorable thing I had ever seen. The kitten looks at us for a bit before jumping into the car and starting to explore. It was checking out everything we put in the back seat as well as the dashboard, back window-sill, it was just crawling all over the car. It was so cute that even Captain_C, who is allergic to cats, couldn’t help but say “Awwwww, look at the kitty!”.
The first summer I was with my now wife, she had several unfixed cats who roamed at will, and the Siamese was pregnant. I had noticed and commented on how expectant cats didn’t seem to show their condition the way dogs do (think of the famous Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf statue)…dogs do show. They get enlarged pendulous nipples, much more so than cats.
So coming home to her place one afternoon, I saw the Siamese lying on a chair outside, and noticed what I thought was an enlarged nipple on her lower midsection. I was about to say, “Well, I guess cats do show when they’re pregnant after all”… but the supposed nipple turned out to be the new kitten’s ear! He had arrived while we were out.
Said kitten now lives with us still, 12 years later, and very much advanced in size and weight.
Quincy, my ultra-adorable beagle, was bratting around, trying to get something from me. Now he’s cute enough, and his cuteness acceleration is uncanny. He can break down your walls in an instant and make you do virtually anything, but this was different. He groveled on the floor, by my feet. It was the most mind-numbingly cute thing I’ve ever seen. He hasn’t done it since, mostly because it also broke my heart…from the cuteness.
Well, I’m going to deviate from kitties. I’m allergic to them.
One of my favorites was New Year’s Eve a few years back. We were hosting a New Year’s Eve party, and due to my work schedule I couldn’t get to all the baking , so I had to get up at O’Dark Thirty to get some more stuff done before I went to work. I had groaned about it the night before.
So I’m up, grumpily measuring and mixing and pre-heating the oven, when I hear my daughter’s alarm clock go off. Silly girl, I thought, she forgot to turn off her alarm during the school break.
She comes out, bundled in her purple Christmas pajamas, wearing her purple Christmas robe and purple Christmas slippers, and says, “I got up to help you bake!”
Yes, she got to lick the bowl *and *the beaters and the spoon.
My other awwww moments are my son graduating high school last month…the first time we brought our new dog home from the pound…he was just a pup, and we took him around our neighborhood for a walk, and halfway home he sat down, as if to say, “I’m tired. I can’t walk anymore,” so Ivylad slung him over his shoulder and got him the rest of the way home.
I love kitties, but I too am going to deviate from them.
Right now, I have a part-time job washing dogs. I’m not sure which was cuter, but I have had both a 16-week-old Weimeraner pup and a 12-week-old bulldog pup come in for baths; not at the same time, or the cute would have put me in a coma. They were both really gooooodpuppies, too, both of them, yestheywere! And I got paid to pay attention to them! The whole time I was with each was an “Awwwwwwww!” moment if there ever was one.
