In the spring of 2012, we lived in an apartment out in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Our neighbours moved away from the area and seemingly left their male cat Hal behind. Hal was a bit of a feral cat – it wasn’t a stretch to think they couldn’t catch him before they left.

I should preface this by saying Hal and I were already acquainted; I was close with his people (not just some random person). He would come and meow at my office door, and I would walk him home and let him in his house; he had me well trained – I was staff to him.

Hal moved in under our apartment, and he became rather good friends with the neighbourhood skunk, who also lived under our building. Regularly the two were seen trucking around town together. Our landlord quickly evicted the skunk leaving Hal alone in the world again.

Janet to the rescue!

Dan and I decided to adopt Hal, bringing our cat total to three, and eventually convinced him to move in with us. No easy feat. Holy, it was a rough start as Hal was a sassy cat, to say the very least; regular people would have aborted the operation but not us… we’re stubborn! OR maybe I’m just the stubborn one.

We took Hal to the vet for a check-up shortly after he moved in and realized Hal was a Halle! (pronounced like Halle Berry). Like honestly, who checks that stuff out?!

About a week later, we were informed that the real Hal had moved in with our neighbours’ family, on the other side of town, and was now a happy indoor cat.

In June of 2012, we moved to Willowfell. Foolishly, converting Halle to an indoor cat was no easy task and was very short-lived. She quickly escaped and took up shop in our, ah, shop where she has lived ever since.

Halle is a wonderful cat. Truthfully, she’s more ‘man’s best friend’ than anything else; Dan is her person. She has a broken-up kinda meow that adds to her crocked tail sassy personality; don’t let her catch you in the act when you stop petting her… you’ll get a good swat as much to ask ‘whoa, we’re finished here?!’.

She is a staple at Willowfell, one of the originals, a treasure for sure.