Bronn began hanging around my yard and garage in late 2014. He appeared to be a fairly young tom, and while he didn't let me get close enough to touch him, he wasn't terribly shy, either. Since the life of a stray tom tends to be difficult and short, and he looked like he had the makings of a nice cat, I kept working on gaining his trust and in March, 2015, I managed to round him up. He turned out to have FIV, which is endemic among stray toms in my neighborhood, but was otherwise in good shape.

After being neutered, it took a little while before Bronn lost his urge to patrol and defend his territory. My cats are strictly indoors, but I woke up one morning to find him missing. I have a small window AC unit in the living room, because that room faces west and gets hot in the summer. It has accordion-pleated plastic side panels to fill in the window space on either side, and I had taped slabs of foam insulation over those spaces on the outside. Well, on that morning one of the insulation slabs was gone, and the plastic panel showed signs of having been pushed out. (It runs in a groove along the bottom, but if you push hard it can be forced out.) If I pushed it, I could open up just a large enough gap for a medium-sized cat to wriggle through.

It took considerable dedication and effort for him to recognize that as an escape route and manage to work it open. I'm used to recently adopted toms trying to door-dart during the first couple of weeks, but this was the first time I've had one open up his own perimeter breach. I replaced the insulation and blocked off the plastic pleating securely from the inside to keep it from happening again. Meanwhile, Bronn was on the loose for a couple of days, but then came back to the garage for food, and I was able to nab him again. After that he settled down into being a housecat, and no longer showed any interest in going outside.

Bronn is an intelligent cat with a calm nature. He's quite affectionate with me, liking to get in my lap to be petted, and to snuggle up beside me in bed. He gets along well with the other cats and never starts trouble, but he does keep an eye on things. If two of the cats are squabbling and I walk over to tell them to settle down, Bronn walks right behind me and watches to make sure he doesn't need to step in as enforcer.