Our cats were both rescue cats who would have been dead shortly not long after they were found if it wasn't for human intervention.
One of them was found as a kitten wandering lost near a busy road, it was near the curb when it was picked up and taken away, it's a road leading into a Cinema here which is rather busy I would wager the Kitten had less than 5 minutes before it would have had its head crushed by a car tire.
Honestly looking at him there... I don't think he minds being alive all that much :)
The other my partner found during a bad storm here, it was lashing rain and the tiny lost black kitten was crying out looking for someone, we think it had been thrown out because she is a long haired cat which had some poop down the back of her fur I think someone had literally just seen that she made a mess of her fur and chucked her out like a piece of rubbish to die on the street. She got picked up and taken home, we washed her off and while she was rather shaken for a good few months and generally scared she has now (7 years later) forgotten everything about that night where she was left to die because she made a mess on her fur.
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