Happy Tail: Miss Adelaide
If you Google “Toronto rags to riches story,” there’s a reasonable chance a picture of Miss Adelaide, formerly Fingers, will pop up in the search results. Few cats have enjoyed as happy an outcome given such a rocky start.
Miss Adelaide’s story begins in August 2023 at a large townhouse complex in Etobicoke, where she was sleeping rough with dozens of other free-range cats being recklessly bred and — sigh — sold for profit on Kijiji. A woman walking her dog in the area alerted ace ACR trapper Rosary to the dire, spiralling situation.
Rosary in turn contacted trapper Lori and other dedicated members of the Trappers’ League, organized under the Toronto Feral Cat Coalition and facilitated by Community Cats Toronto. It is intended to assist individuals and member groups by humanely trapping community cats for sterilization and care. And boy, were they needed in Etobicoke.
Says Lori, “That summer, more than 30 cats were trapped, many pregnant. Some went to Toronto Animal Services, some to Toronto Humane Society, and two went to Annex.” And not a moment too soon. “By that point,” Lori says, “neighbours were threatening to take matters into their own hands with the cats.”
Fingers, named by Lori’s daughter, was spayed then recovered by Lori in her home. “From the beginning, she showed herself to be a lovely, social cat who was clearly happy indoors, even inclined to be a couch potato. So, I requested intake with ACR.”
Enter Therese and her husband Ed in spring 2024. When they relocated to Toronto from New York, the couple decided they wanted a cat. Good word-of-mouth led them to ACR. “I checked the website every day to see what cats were up for adoption,” Therese says.
Eventually, she discovered Fingers, who it was suggested would be best adopted by a home without other pets or children. Check, check. At age two, Fingers also checked another box: she was neither a kitten nor a geriatric. A pair of visits to Lori’s place to meet the cat convinced Therese and Ed that Fingers was the one.
Asked for a few descriptors of the cat’s personality, Therese offers, “She is very cuddly, especially with me in the morning. She is vocal and very beautiful, and she is a little lazy,” she says, adding that Ed has been successful in getting her to jump to catch a toy wand “which is amazing for such a lazy cat though she is terrible at landing,” Therese laughs. “Don’t cats automatically know how to land? She doesn’t.
“Anyway, she is just a darling, sweet cat. She loves to eat, and she has fallen in love with a very soft blanket she thinks is her mother. She’ll bite and knead it. And she has bewitched my husband.”
As for the cat’s unique name, both Therese and Ed are musical theatre fans, and Guys and Dolls has a main character named Miss Adelaide. “Plus, we wanted to name her after a Toronto street.”
A year on from her adoption, Lori agrees Miss Adelaide hit the jackpot. “If you had seen where she came from…,” she says, trailing off. “Therese was wonderful in sending me pictures of Miss Adelaide as she was settling in. I could tell the cat was going to be well taken care of and very loved.”
-Kim Hughes