She was found in the engine block of a truck in the Topeka warehouse district, by a trucker who heard her plaintive meow just before turning the ignition (which would have chopped her up!). A friend who worked there kept her all day in her office, then brought her to me when she got off work.
There are a number of feral cats there who are tolerated because they control vermin. My friend assumes, as do I, that Tango's mother had gone out hunting and failed to return. Since it was a chilly morning, Tango, who had probably gone out searching for her mother and for food, probably crawled into the engine block to keep warm and to hide when people started coming in to the area that morning.
She was just 2.4 pounds when I got her, and riddled with parasites (which was also evidence that she was feral). I left her at the vet's office the next day to be treated for fleas, worms, and ear mites. Since she was so tiny, our original age estimate was 5-6 weeks, but once she was free of parasites and had access to enough food, she grew at an amazing rate: she weighed 5 pounds just one week later, 7.5 pounds at the one month mark. The vet re-examined her the week after the first visit, checking her teeth more carefully, and estimated that she was probably more like 10-12 weeks old, but her growth had been stunted by parasites and lack of adequate food. She is 8 1/2 years old now, and she weighs 13.5 pounds, but since she is a Maine Coon, that is not excessive at all.
Of all my cats, all of whom are very loving, very cuddly with me, she is and always has been the one who acts most like the mommy-tied baby. I assume that is because she was with her mother and probably still nursing some right up until she lost her, and since I adopted her right at the time of her loss, she transferred that fierce attachment (and the biscuit-making nursing behavior!) directly to me.
My 19-year-old Gabby had died early in July, and a friend had paid the fee to adopt an 8 1/2 month old rescue kitten for me as a birthday gift one month after Gabby's death, so my other cat and I would not feel so sad and lonely. But then Tango came to us just one month after I adopted little Paris, so Lila and I ended up with 2 new kitties to help us get over losing our Gabby.
Lila died in July of 2011, at age 18, but just one year earlier I had adopted another little girl kittie, Lucia (pronounced "Loo-chia," and called Lucy or Chia Pet), so I still have 3 kittie girls. Since my 2 kids are all grown up and living elsewhere, my kitties are my babies. They would be anyway, of course, but without any human kids at home, they have no competition for my attention, so they are even more spoiled than they might otherwise be.
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