During the first couple of weeks after I discovered my five new "feral" cats in the Safeway parking lot, I would go out there twice a day to feed them. One day I was able to get pretty close to Stubbie, and I was wishing that I had a string to dangle in front of him in the hopes that I could entice him into playing with it.

On some of my earlier visits I had a string, but this time I didn't. So, I took off one of my shoelaces and used it instead. (This worked very well for me the first day I discovered Mike and Ike and Jerry.)

Stubbie approached it very tentatively. He seemed interested, but he was also a little wary of the situation. All of a sudden, with no warning at all, he grabbed it and yanked it out of my hand and ran into the bushes with it - all in one quick motion.

That stinker! He stole a perfectly good shoelace (I never saw it again)!

So, there I was - standing in the Safeway parking lot with one shoelace missing. He outsmarted me - and that is the origin of his name (STUBBIE = Smarter Than Uncle Bobby).

Stubbie Jr. looks a lot like Stubbie - and that is how Stubbie Jr. got his name. Billy Jr. looks a lot like Billy. I always suspected that Stubbie was the father and Billy was the mother of the two Juniors. But it turns out that Black Cat is the mother, and Stubbie might (or might not) be the father.