IIN that it bothers me when people impose human emotions onto animals?

I beg to differ. The last cat I saved showed thankfulness. I had saved him on accident actually. You see, he looked a lot like the other cat I had at the time (which had no soul...j/k); they were both gingers and were about the same size and I was half drunk off my ass. I heard our dogs barking in the backyard and went out to investigate. The tangerine cat that I thought I already owned was perched on the fence, freaked the fuck out. I ran out to grab him and in my house he found refuge.

I was still pretty wasted so I flopped down on the couch. I looked over at "my" cat across the room and was noticing how pale he looked now, after all the commotion. I remember wondering if fear had weakened the pigment of his fur... it was either that or the alcohol was distorting my vision gravely. He kept staring at me hesitant, but longingly and in due course hopped up on the couch to join my drunken slumber. His affectionate purrs rumbled violently. I thought this was strange as this cat has never cared to bond before. I think he snuggled up under the blankets and everything, but I don't quite remember, and there in my arms he slept all the night. When I woke in the morning I observed the white flea collar that he wasn't wearing the day before. My sister consoled with, "Mom probably put it on him".

It still didn't make complete sense to me, but it took my mind off the matter for a few minutes. He was still quite pale and I was getting worried that he was ill. Even his stripes were awry. Just when it hit me my REAL cat came scurrying from one of the back rooms. He was quite timid so he did something weird like hide and surveil his doppelganger, his EVIL TWIN! I screeched and threw the intruder right out the door with no mercy!

However, that was not enough to ward the little creeper off. He hung around for a few days, without us feeding him or anything. He cupped water out of our bucket with his paw. Soon, my family members did start feeding him. I was still drenched in the guilt of sleeping with a stray cat. I felt so violated and my other cat seemed quite offended as well. Although the more the stray hung around the more I liked him. He came to prove his immense loyalty and appreciation by walking my sister and I to the end of our street, to a 6 lane roadway and waited patiently in some corner bushes for our return from the store.

And so we took him in because he manipulated the fuck out of us, which is pretty cool for a cat. Sadly, he went incognito when we moved to the country. I like to think he traveled back to the city, where his heart was (might have been?), arrived safely and continued his legacy of walking families to stores and slurping bucket water much like a raccoon might do.