"Despite my best efforts to avoid the CDS... it still triumphed in the end": The emotional story of a territorial cat's resistance and a rescue kitten's fear that ends in a life of cuddles, companionship, and a home of five in a small Paris apartment

Author image for Laurent Shinar
Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Aug 13, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

Oh, that old Cat Distribution System, it seems that no matter what you do you cannot escape it. Much like a cat stalking their prey. Which makes this story all the more hilarious when you consider that the kind rescuer tried their best to avoid being delivered another cat, but the CDS just bided their time, keeping a close eye on the rescuer, waiting for the purrfect moment to pounce and deliver her two new cattos.

And that is exactly what it did, well without the need to actually pounce, but if it had not come up behind her and proverbially smacked her in the face, then there is a chance she would have tried to run away. Sometimes you simply have to make it obvious that there is no getting out of a situation. Not that this was a particularly bad thing to happen. Most people only get to dream about the CDS delivering them a fur baby.
 

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  • 01
    The CDS attempted to grant me a little black kitten while I was filling up my car in 2014. I heard
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    meowing under a dumpster and spotted two green eyes. I decided to go home (about a mile away) and get my cat's vet carrier and a can of wet food. I
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  • 03
    returned and this little guy absolutely ZIPPED into my carrier, no questions asked (except, "Where's the wet food???" after he finished off the first small can).
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  • Now that is what the Cat Distribution System is all about. Making the connections between hoomans and cats at the purrfect moment. And that moment being when the cat is ready to give up on feral social norms and go forth into the arms of a hooman who will love them furever.

  • 04
    I lived in a tiny apartment with a very territorial cat and could not have kept them isolated.
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  • 05
    For my own cat's safety, I called a kitten rescue and they agreed to take in this little guy. I
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  • 06
    donated $50 to help defray the costs of fixing him, etc. They took good care of him and sent me updates sometimes.
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  • 07
    They informed me that he was in good health, aside from an oddly-broken tail. The vet did not think it was a congenital defect, but that
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  • 08
    someone (or something) had deliberately broken his tail.
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  • 09
    A few months later, it was October and he was an older kitten (5 months old at that point), which is when they start to get harder to adopt out. He is also a
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  • 10
    black cat, which has lower adoption rates, and it was October, so they weren't doing black cat adoptions that month. They were
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  • It is honestly shocking and appalling that black cats still carry the ridiculous stigma they were given hundreds of years ago. If anything they are the complete opposite of their stigma, and even back in those days their only crime was catching plague infested vermin to protect their pawrents.

  • 11
    concerned that he might not get adopted and age out into a regular rescue. They asked if I might come meet him again and see if we got along.
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  • 12
    I got to the foster home and his foster human went and got him to bring to me. She plopped him in my lap. He sniffed
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    my hand, looked up at me with big eyes, and then IMMEDIATELY started purring. She knew he'd picked me, at that point, and was GRINNING. "He remembers you!"
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  • 14
    I had been considering finding a suitable companion for my territorial cat -- I had adopted and fixed her after she had had a litter, so I hoped that a kitten
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    might set off her momma cat instincts... and that a larger kitten might have a chance of defending itself against her, if needed.
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  • 16
    I explained my concerns and thoughts to the rescue and they offered to have me foster him for a week to see how it went. Lily (my other
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  • 17
    cat) hissed at him the first day, ignored him the second, and then did domination grooming the third day. By the fifth day they were sleeping together.
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  • 18
    Binx has been with me through four moves, including one international move. We said goodbye to Lily, then hello to Gandalf the Grey Tabby. He adores my
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    wife, although he is less fond of his step- siblings (my wife's two cats). Doesn't hate them, just pretends they don't exist. So now we have four cats in our small Paris apartment. Binx is
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    nine years old now and has been a paragon of health. He is my sweet, special boy; our little spoon; and our surly, goth teenager.
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    So, despite my best efforts to avoid the CDS (before knowing about it, of course), it still triumphed in the end.
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  • 22

    "This is Binx. I found him under a dumpster at a gas station when he was 5 weeks old. Took him to a kitten rescue. Returned a few months later to adopt him."

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  • 23

    "Two moves later, he's enjoying the safety a box can bring."

    Max play dinner music prime tt
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    "Another move (after a wreck left me disabled and in need of a single-story home) and here he is supervising my bath time."

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  • 25

    "And yet ANOTHER move later... I got married and we moved overseas to Paris. This is his glamor shot."

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  • 26

    "He screams a lot. Usually in the morning before I'm awake or out of bed, but sometimes he comes to alert me to Wrongness in the house, like Low Food Levels or similar."

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  • 27

    "He doesn't make bread; he has M*****R PEETS."

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  • 28

    "Despite having 4 cats in the apt, he has declared that he will NOT share the top of the cat tree. He is, however, a paper tiger and will immediately back down if someone jumps up."

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cat best effort companionship paris emotional kitten reddit story cat story cuddles cat rescue story Cat distribution system still resistance
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