You can make whatever decisions you think are appropriate in the interests of helping cats, and you should expect other cat owners to do the same. All I'm saying is what I said: I think your impassioned statements on just how quickly a hungry cat becomes YOURS as a result of coughing up one bowl of food (even if someone else has cared for it for years) are exaggerated. If I were looking for my cat and some self-appointed cat ethicist told me, "I found your cat as a skinny starveling, and it is my understanding that he is mine from the first bowl"? All I'm saying is: that person should expect problems.

That said, it's better to feed that hungry cat than not, on the chance it WON'T get food somewhere else. If you feed it, maybe it will find its way home. Maybe it will find its home with you. I've had cats that "belonged" to neighbors move in with me – since they weren't get food, shelter, medical attention, or any other kind of interaction. I've had a cat move out on ME – his original owner had been a little boy, whose mother decided to keep the dog, but get rid of the cat. That cat (an indoor/outdoor cat in a secluded dead-end street) subsequently found himself a new family to visit – it had a little boy and a dog. The boy's parents talked to me when they were going to move away, and I said yes, he could go with them – he was obviously happier there. I've opened up my door and had a never-before-seen pregnant stray run into my house. The truth is, sometimes the cats DO decide for themselves.

For most of last winter, my in-laws saw a cat roaming around their house; tiny, skinny little tortie girl that ran as soon as you approached her, but came back and scarfed the gooshy tuna we gave her as soon as we left. At some point she got an injury on her tail that my husband couldn't catch her to treat her for, and disappeared. We worried that she'd gotten killed by a racoon or something.

Last March, she started coming back more frequently, the wound on her tail still open and occasionally bleeding. But when she started showing up daily for tasty leftovers, and actually consented to let us pet her after a feeding, we started debating adopting her. My allergies were the only thing stopping us.

Finally, one evening, the kitty decided to climb our roof and meow at the second story window — where my husband and I live. So the hubby climbed onto the roof, and we put her in the bathroom for a night. (The hubby snuck out for kitty litter so the in-laws wouldn't notice, as they already have a dog. Somehow, saying "YOU SAW NOTHINK!" qualifies as keeping it a secret.) She was ours after the first night.

We vetted her, fixed her, got rid of her worms, bandaged her tail, and fed her. She's now twice the size she was originally, and Sierra is a happy, spastic, toe-attacking member of the family. She still has a bald spot where that injury was, but the tail still works as it should, and she has a nice comb-over going. :3

If she was owned by anyone, she's our kitty now. Yay for being adopted by kitties! :D

I think this is an exaggeration. As Sarah pointed out, even conscientious cat owners lose track of outdoor cats, and sometimes, they don't come back for a while, and sometimes they are not great at caring for themselves, and when you see them, they may be skinny. My family had the occasional cat that would do exactly this — wander off, defy efforts to get him back, and later come home, on his own, as they often do — none the worse for wear, but skinny, which is why he came home.

I have absolutely no sympathy for the pet owners in this particular story who, as Sarah pointed out, don't seem to have cared.

But as nice as it is of you to offer the bowl of kibble, if you claim ownership of someone else's pet simply because it was hungry when you found it, I think that's too far. And if you tell me, "I'm sorry, but your cat came over to my house on his 'circuit' to grab a 'nosh,' and he has decided he's mine now," I will knock you down and take my cat back, I promise you.

Adlib, I'm sorry. I know how you feel. Not all rescues and placements go well, either. You just … you do the best you can at the time, you know? And maybe you make a different decision at another time. You do the best you can do. :(

Linda: Whew! Good. Happy endings. I feel better than I did. Happy kitty – LUCKY kitty!

You know what? The first time you take a cat to the vet's, it's YOURS. I'm controlling myself, trying to keep from saying from the FIRST BOWL OF FOOD – because some cats, the healthy ones who have a circuit and a home and who stop by for a visit and a nosh, THEY'LL decide if they're yours. But that skinny starveling who looks at you so hopefully? YOURS, from the first bowl. If you don't get a responsible, sobbing "Thank God you found him/her, what do I owe you?" from the original owner when you put up a poster, you don't have to give that cat back to ANYONE. I've driven hundreds of miles with a cat that peed on my lap (left by the housesitter of my ex's EX), I've walked into houses that had cats left behind with no food.

You find a cat and care for it, and you have a funny feeling about returning it to that "neighbor" down the street who's all … oh, yeah, that's my cat, s/he's an outdoor cat …? That's YOUR cat. No need to be nasty, just make sure you're paid FIRST for the vet bills, the food bills, the pet supplies and litter before you turn that cat over – and there won't be any fuss, because anyone who cared enough to pay for that care in the FIRST place wouldn't have left a living creature outdoors to suffer.

But honestly, there's no point in agonizing about how difficult a situation is (such as getting fired) when you are not in it. This is the worrier's mindset, I am convinced: there is a loop where you fixate on a problem, you think of a solution, but you can't actually attempt the solution yet, so you return to fretting over the problem. When the entire reason you can't address the problem is that YOU DON'T HAVE IT YET.

It would go, for instance, thusly: "What if I lose my job? What problems would that cause? Well, in that hypothetical universe, I'm broke, I'm embarrassed, I have to start over OH MY GOD, WHAT WILL I DO? Okay, look for another job! Um, borrow money! Um, go back to school! But I can't do any of these things right now, because I still have a job! I can't do anything! Oh my God, what if I lose my job?"

See what I mean? You can't move productively to problem-solving, because you don't even have the problem. If you actually LOST your job, you would go out and get another one. Or go back to school. You would figure out something. It's what people do. But because you HAVEN'T been fired, you can do nothing, so you feel powerless and worry more. This is why I, for one, worry the most about things that haven't happened, not things that have.

I've since learned that in reality, no one cares about the small stuff. So long as you take the time to learn from little mistakes and try not to make the same ones over and over, all anyone cares about at the end of the day is that your work attitude/ethic is good, and you get your work done on time. To help you cope, Sars' advice is good, but I would add that the minute you feel your brain start down the negative stressing road, immediately road block it by either saying out loud or thinking really hard the word "STOP!" (I lightly punch my thigh) then shifting your thinking to something else. If it starts again, then do it again. It takes a while, and you'll be saying "STOP" a lot for the first little while (I averaged 5 every 30 minutes for the first day), but as you keep going, it gets less and less.

As for addressing the "no training" problem. I didn't get any either, really. I countered that by asking LOTS of questions. As soon as I came across something I didn't know about, and couldn't figure out the answer to in 15 minutes, I'd get up and ask someone who did. If you're worried about "pestering" people, write down a number of questions, and then bring them to someone all at once. At the very least, your superiors will see your willingness to learn and assertiveness, and hopefully that will translate into a good job progress review later on. Little tip: write down the answers and any other little tips you get in a notebook and ensure that you don't ask the same question twice within a short time period.

Hope that helps!