I absolutely adore Grace. She's at least 18 years old, I never thought to keep track of it in the early years. She is the very last of the original colony of 20+ feral cats who moved onto the property back in the day.
I've brought her in several times over the years and she hates it. She just sits at the back door and cries. But we have gotten to know each other pretty well over the years.
Now, she's the lone survivor of the original colony and alone in her house outside and I haven't been able to keep track of her as well as I want- often the younger, bolder cats from another colony will push her out of her bowl and she's so passive she'll just move aside and let it happen.
So we've come to a compromise. I bring her in for meals twice a day. She eats in the rehab room with a few other special needs cats. She seems to forget that she's eating sometimes and I have to take her back to her bowl. The whole process takes up to an hour.
I then let her out of the rehab and see how long she's willing to stay inside before going back to her own house.
I'm hoping one day she'll stay. In the meantime, she gets to do it her way and I get to see that she has everything she needs.