Purrsimmon, Kitty of the Sun!!!

So here's what I know about Pursimmon's back story: she was found at the end of July as a pregnant stray in the northwestern most county of the Maryland panhandle by animal control and taken to the county shelter. The county is sparsely populated and the Alleghany Mountains of the Appalachian Range runs through it. So there's lots of wilderness and state parks with a few small towns and some villages and resorts.

I don't know if she was found in a town, around homesteads, a resort or camp where she was left behind by tourists, or in the wilderness, but I'm glad it was summer and hope she didn't go stray in the winter, because that would be some cold country to be out in winter. But there's no telling how many days or weeks or months she had been living stray, whether she was a young kitten or a young cat when lost or dumped, and what kind of socialization she had before being homeless. Siameses can get pregnant earlier than other breeds, as early as 4 months old.

Within a day of being captured and brought to the shelter, this mountain girl gave birth to 3 kittens. I imagine even a shelter cage felt safer than the life she was living as a place to give birth, poor thing. One of them died within a few days. The remainder were a flame-point boy, like his mom except he was deaf, and a dilute tortoiseshell girl.

A rescue out there transported Purrsimmon and her kittens south to a rescue group in Purcelville, VA in the Virginia foothills, a little more populated area at the far edge of the Washington, DC metro area where she and her kittens would have a better chance to find adopters. A fosterer with a spare room to keep a mom with her kittens in separation from her other foster animals was found, and Purrsimmon was put on mom duty for 2 months until her kittens were old enough to be adopted. Her daughter was adopted then, but her son broke his leg and so Purrsimmon was kept on mom duty with him another month. Her son was then adopted by a man who works with deaf people, so that was a nice connection where his disability could be an asset in his new home.

Purrsimmon was spayed in October. They determined her to be about a year old, so they made her birthday, October 1st. Off mom duty, she could now hang out with the other foster cats and she liked to sit near another young cat, a dilute tortoiseshell girl, but was skittish with people. Now it was time to find her a home and they started advertising her on Petfinder.com and other sites. This was the pic of her I saw on Petfinder before I decided to ask about her in December after Moo died:



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