Rocky may not have heard that, but I had... which is why my original
plan was to give him away to become a barn cat. I'm pretty sure he
never had a home before now. TED's age estimate was 6-8 years old when
neutered. I'd been feeding him for a couple years by that time. I
suppose he COULD have been someone's pet at one time, but he was truly
wild when I started feeding him. It was months before he let me close,
and maybe a year before I actually touched him.

That said, his is a true success story. I'm not sure why, either,
since I was pretty much winging it. Things were done at his pace,
nothing forced except TED visits. I suppose the success may be
attributed to his age. According to some things I've read, he was old
for a feral... I've heard their average life span is only six years.
During the time I knew him as a feral, he really didn't get into many
fights - though I did have to haul him off to TED a couple times for
abcesses the couple years I knew him before his neutering. He was the
biggest tom in the neighborhood, and the others usually backed off and
let him have his way without resorting to actually fights. Since being
neutered, he hasn't had a single fight that I know of. And, though at
first thought he was kind of dumb, over time I've found him to be
pretty smart.

In the fine newsgroup "rec.pets.cats.anecdotes",
Jul 2004:

Yes, great story and congrats on your anniversary, Steve!

Everyone needs love.  :)

Without a doubt there have been many changes. Since you were going
through the process of bringing in Robin and Tucker pretty much at the
same time, you have a couple anniversaries to celebrate, too. I
remember Robin going fairly smoothly, but also the bites, quarentees,
welding gloves, etc with Tucker. You went through a lot more trouble.