Happy October, community cat champs.

You may have noticed that, several months ago, I stopped greeting you as “feral friends.” In fact, if you’re paying an exquisite amount of attention, you may have noticed that I use the word “feral” very little, and very carefully.

What’s up with that?

Terminology, it turns out, is hotly debated when it comes to outdoor cats. Get a room of well-intentioned, hard-working cat rescuers in a room, and you’ll get a din of opinions over whether those free-roaming felines are “feral,” “community cats,” or something else entirely.

What everyone seems to agree on, however, is that the word “feral” has gotten a bad rap. Skeptical? Just do a Google image search for “cat,” then another one for “feral cat.” The first set of results will be cute enough to hug. The second set will be terrifying enough to cast in Jurassic World 2.

In the popular imagination, “feral” = “vicious.”

Even among cat-savvy folks like yourself, however, there’s some debate as to how to accurately use the word “feral.” A true feral cat has never been properly socialized to people, and is unlikely to change her mind about our kind. But what about those free-roaming cats with cuddlier inclinations? What do we call them?

And what does all of this esoteric stuff have to do with your October update anyway?

Simple: Raffi.

As you can see, Raffi is utterly, astoundingly exquisite. He is one of the handsomest, most splendorous cats ever to roam central New Jersey.

And he’s the newest Tabby’s Place resident.

As it happens, Raffi is also the poster boy for the grey area between “feral” and “free-roaming but something other than feral.” Tabby’s Place, as you know so well, is engaged in a uniquely comprehensive version of TNR that we call T2NR — targeted trap-neuter-return. This means that we work on reaching all the free-roaming cats in a tightly-defined geographic region, so we can have a complete, long-term positive effect before moving on.

Like any long-haul project, this one comes with complexities and complications. A key part of T2NR is continuing to monitor our cat colonies for newcomers. It’s not uncommon for new cats to be attracted to our colonies’ consistent food sources. As these sojourners show up, we trap, neuter and return them, too.

Or not. Which brings me back to Raffi.

Recently, Tabby’s Place set up a wildlife camera in one of our community cat colonies. We thought we’d reached all the cats in this particular group…until we saw the video.

Who in the world was that glorious Siamese?

Thanks to the camera, we knew we had a newcomer — and we knew we’d need to trap him if we didn’t want the population to start growing again. So our team set up traps, set up the camera…and soon caught one very handsome cat.

Sometimes it’s not immediately clear whether a cat is “truly feral,” simply nervous, or full-on friendly. But in Raffi’s case, there was no mystery. This boy was what, in technical terminology, is called a “mushy love muffin.” He hasn’t stopped vigorously rubbing us and meowing at the top of his lungs since he arrived.

A man of mystery, Raffi is exuberantly friendly…but also unneutered. He has no microchip, and our efforts to find his owner have led nowhere. So what’s his story? Was he adopted but dumped or lost before he could be fixed? Was he born in the wild but loved by passersby? Or is the that rare but real “feral” who never had any human interaction…but loves us anyway?

Although he hasn’t stopped talking since we met him, Raffi’s not answering those particular questions. So, we’ll simply have to love him well, neuter him soon, and find him a loving home — all of which is our pleasure.

Dear sponsors, I can’t thank you enough for making this complicated, compassionate, joyful work possible for our cats. Whether they are “feral,” “community cats,” or “outdoor awesome,” they are blessed to have you in their lives. It’s a joy to serve them with you!