Momma's boy

I recently bragged about Smokey's recent exploits to a friend and learned something cool. She told me that Smokey's familiarity with tree climbing likely came from time spent with his mom, an outdoors cat. Although a family took him in as a kitten, his mom and brother, who remained a stray with mom, would stop by the house to take Smokey out.

Sometimes I feel bad because we separated him from his mom and brother. When Smokey got lost when we first adopted him, we wondered if he had gone in search of them. On the other hand, if we hadn't adopted him, he would have been left outside a stray and he clearly loves having a home. He gets to eat regularly and sleep comfortably. During his time "out in the wild" he even tried to slip into people's garages and lure children with his cuteness in hopes of getting them to let him into their homes (He reportedly rolled around on the ground and let them rub his belly. He hates it when we rub his belly. Hm.).

On another note, I'm debating whether to keep trimming Smokey's claws. We don't like him scratching up our couch but I don't want to remove one of his means of survival either since he goes outdoors quite a bit.