Last summer, a black and white cat started showing up in our garden.
She only came at night. Thin, matted fur, clearly hungry. We'd only ever had dogs — never dealt with a cat in our lives. We had no idea what to do.
She kept coming back, night after night. Eventually we started leaving food out for her.
Gradually she started showing up during the day too. One afternoon we were just walking around the garden and she came right up to us. We fed her, brushed out the knots in her fur. That was our first real moment.
We gave her a small mat by the back door. That became her spot.
When winter came and the rain wouldn't stop, we let her stay inside. She was incredibly well-behaved. What surprised us was how familiar she seemed with the house — she walked around like she'd been here before. We think she might have known the previous owners. During the day she still went out on her rounds, but by evening she'd be back on the sofa.
That was our routine. Until one night in March.
She was suddenly in a lot of pain. There was blood on the floor. We panicked — first-time cat owners, no idea what was happening. It turned out to be a urinary emergency.
The next morning we rushed her to Vet4Pets in Leyland.
That's where the vet scanned her microchip.
Turns out she had a name. Pebbles. Ten years old. Missing for over a year.
We contacted the previous owner. They'd settled into a new home and couldn't take her back. So with their blessing, Pebbles officially became ours.
I have to say — the team at Vet4Pets were genuinely wonderful. It wasn't just the medical care. You could tell they actually cared about this cat. The surgery went well and Pebbles recovered faster than we expected.
My wife and I talked it over. We'd been planning a holiday this year, but we decided to put that money towards Pebbles' treatment instead. And pick up some extra work to keep looking after her.
Sounds impulsive? Maybe. But we'd been living with her for almost a year by then. She trusted us. We couldn't let her go.
Her daily routine now goes something like this: morning medication (she takes it better than I take my vitamins), claim the sofa, afternoon birdwatching by the window, evening dinner with us. She still goes out to the garden sometimes, but she's clearly become more of a homebody.
She used to wait in the garden, skinny and cautious. Now she won't get off the sofa. Sometimes I look at her lying there like she owns the place, and I think — she probably picked us, not the other way around.
She's the first cat on ManekiGo.
It was because of her that I started building this thing. Before we got to know Pebbles, I never really thought about how many cats live in any given neighbourhood. They each have their own routes, their own schedules, their own personalities. The street you walk down every day probably has several cats you've never noticed.
Pebbles taught me that.
So I made ManekiGo — a place for people to discover and record the community cats around them.
This one's for Pebbles. And for every cat that chose their human.