Meet Isabelle (Izzy), our fruit bat. She is a domestic short haired, and that's all I know about her breed. We adopted her when she was a few weeks old, as a stray rescue. She was obviously the runt, and going on two years old, she's still pretty small. Of any cat I've ever known, she's the only one who would play tag. She would run after a person, slap their ankle, then run, expecting you to chase her. If you did chase her, and slap her tail, she'd whip around and return the favor. Playing tag with her was good exercise, back when we got her. However, she stopped playing a long time ago, and is now fairly prissy, as far as cats go. She loves attention, on her own terms. Doesn't like to be picked up, and makes some very bizarre sounds when angry. She was dubbed a fruit bat, in part because it makes a nice play on words, and her ears are frickin' huge.
Meet Alexander (Xander), our polar bear. Xander, like every cat that's been in our care since getting Izzy, is a feral rescue, born in the wild, raised in our home. I found him after he and his litter-mate took a spill off of a 30ft drop onto some concrete. His litter-mate needed medical attention, so I had Animal Rescue take him. However, Xander seemed more or less ok, and since his mother had since fled, I felt it was right for me to keep him. This picture was taken right after I brought him home, last November, before Thanksgiving. He has since grown, dramatically. As it turns out, Xander is a Maine-Coon mix (1/4, I believe). He now weighs almost 18 pounds, at a little over a year (pictured below, he's only 6 months old). From what I've read, I am to expect him to continue growing until age three, and expect him to live for twenty years, easy. 
Xander was raised with Izzy, and eventually, nine other kittens, eight were feral rescues (caught by myself), and one was a stray rescued from the median on I-95 Northbound (Dubbed Jersey, she later died of an infection that the vet missed. She was the first and only cat to die in our care, and it was hard watching such a young cat fade like that.) Because of this, he is very comfortable around people, and greets most visitors at the door. He is also the only act I know of to play fetch. And much like a dog, he'll enter the room and wake me up, so I can play with him. He will still rough-house with me, and is very animated. But he still sounds like a kitten, and his meows and chirps do not fit his robust frame. Quite often, when watching TV or using my desktop, he'll jump into my lap, look up and my, and whine till I scratch him. And whine loud, while trying to maintain eye contact. I've never cared for a pet more than I do for Xander. My sister-in-laws started calling him a polar bear, after watching him lumber around our apartment.
Lastly, we have the most recent addition to our family, Benny, the dairy cow (in need of orthodontic work). Benny was one of three kittens captured, the last full litter I recovered last spring. His brother and sister were adopted by a very loving couple, who dote on them constantly (we got some nice picture back not long after the adoption). Benny, is small for his age, and heavy for his size. When his baby teeth fell out, something shift wrong, cause his upper and lower canines to overlap wrong. While his ability to eat has not been impaired, and his demeanor is still incredibly upbeat, it caused him to droll for about two weeks straight, and now his canines are seemingly inverted (the upper canines rest in between the lower canines, rather than the other way around). He doesn't meow, he moos. That, combined with his girth and coat, earned him the nickname "dairy cat." He's most likely to pick on Izzy when in the mood to play, even though he refuses to play with me.
As I'm sure you noticed, I mention several times that I had rescued/captured many cats. My place of employment has many wild cats that roam around, and sometimes it causes problems. The county I live in stopped trying to control the feral population, so I got permission from my Sgt to place live traps. With a little luck, and a little poking around, I was able to live-trap seven kittens, and five adults. I also performed a manual capture on one kitten, and there was also Jersey, but finding her was pure luck. The kittens received medical treatment from a local clinic, to verify they were healthy, and treat them for any parasites found. They were all spayed/neutered at this same clinic. Of the eight kittens that lived, seven were adopted, six of those by people I work with. My Aunt-in-law adopted the seventh.
The adults were spayed/neutered, were given rabies shots, and had their left ears 'tipped' (a small portion of each left ear was removed, so that we could identify, at range, cats that had already been captured, and been given treatment). These adults were then released back where I had captured them. One of the adults needed surgery, to treat a latent wound. All of this was paid for out of pocket, although we were fortunate enough to receive some money back from the people who fostered kittens, which covered the shots and surgery each one received.
In a funny twist, one of the litters was actually related to Xander. The kittens, pictured left, have the same mother as Xander (unsure about the father, but I read that a female cat can have kittens from multiple fathers in a single litter). Pictured here are Bubbles, Scrappy, Fuzzy, Tibal, and Shy Guy. Tibal was a manual capture, Bubbles and Shy Guy were caught in the same trap, while Scrappy and Fuzzy were caught individually from the same area. Scrappy earned her name by ripping up my right forearm, and having my boss send me to Patient First (thanks Scrappy). Initially, all the kittens we rescued were hostile, but this is mainly a result of them being scared. Luckily, none of these cats were alone, and it helped them a lot to be with familiar creatures. Many people I've spoken too want more cats, but are concerned with how the animals they already have will react to the visitor. The first few weeks are always rough, but if you are patient, and give it time, they will acclimate to each other. Just because they hiss at first, or try to hide, doesn't mean it will never work. Many people sabotage themselves by expecting the first encounter to foreshadow how they will get along for the rest of their lives. This is not true.For example, Tibal (Tai for short), was adopted by my Aunt-in-law. They have a golden retriever named Chance, that's huge. Tai, at the time, was about 6 pounds, still very small. At first, Tai was terrified of Chance, while the dog wanted desperately to play with the act (Chance kept bringing Tai his toys). These days, not only do the dog and cat rough-house with each other, but when Tai wants to go inside, Chance will walk up to the door and bark till they open the door, just so Tai can go in. If a dog and cat can do that in a matter of months, please believe your pets can do it too.
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