This is Spaceship. She came to us as an older kitten/young cat. We had in the neighborhood both a feral cat colony and a cat hoarder who abandoned over 28 cats and kittens when she moved. After much coaxing, Spaceship decided our backyard was where she wanted to live. We kept her in the house for a month, then she got out refused to come back indoors. For five years we fed her twice a day, and Madri-Guy was finally able to pet her briefly after four years. Gradually, Spaceship wanted to be petted before she ate. If you pet her too long, she would spit and hiss. By last Summer she expected to be petted when she ate, and when we went out to garden. One of us would work on the garden, one would pet the cat, then we would switch. We hated to disappoint her, as she clearly had learned to enjoy being petted. Madri-Guy would try to pick her up, but she would run and hide. She had a house Madri-Guy made for her, but we still worried over her when it was cold, wet, noisy from fireworks, smokey from fires, etc. We dreamed of her coming inside, but we couldn't even pick her up to sit in a lawn chair with her. Then came the Bomb Cyclone came bringing cold weather and freezing rain, and Madri-Guy went out, picked her up and brought her into the house. She didn't protest. I held her for five hours on Thanksgiving Day, then M-G held her. Since then, she goes out to do business, then comes back in through the cat door. We didn't know she knew what a cat door was, but she had plenty of time to see the other cats use it. From the first day, Spaceship has slept next to me. She's next to me right now. It took a week, but she has started playing with toys, and she's keeping her toy safe in the picture.
Spaceship is happy, warm, and bravely putting up with three tiny dogs and four other cats. She has no interest in being outdoors, and wants to catch up on sleep and affection. We can't believe it's the same cat, and I even suspected the aliens may have switched her out for a dupe cat.