It happens. This troper had a German Shepherd who actually ''kidnapped'' a kitten from a litter to raise with her puppies. She looked ridiculous with this tiny mewling kitten sticking out of her mouth like a living cigarette. (Despite being held in jaws that could shatter a beef bone, that kitten never was hurt.)

Another troper has a similar tale: when the future troper was about four or five, a litter of puppies and a litter of kittens were born in the household around the same time. Mama Dog (an Airedale) kept stealing the kittens, putting them in with her puppies, then caring for the combined brood quite well. Needless to say, Mama Cat was ''not'' amused. A few years later in the same household, three litters of kittens were born around the same time. The mothers pooled the kitten care, with any mother happily nursing, washing, or otherwise tending any kitten in range. None of the mothers seemed to care who'd given birth to which kitten.

This Troper was adopted by her own pet cat. I was seven when we received her, and she immediately got the idea that I was a human "kitten" and needed to be looked after. This meant hissing violently at anyone who came near my bedroom, trying to wash my face with her tongue, and on one unforgettable occasion, guarding me for three days solid when I was bedridden with the flu.

This Troper has a chronic illness and her cat acts exactly the same way. She also follows me constantly like a furry orange shadow and doesn't even snub me when I disappear away to college for weeks on end. Instead she just acts happy to see me.

Cats are awesome, I don't know why everybody thinks they're mean.

When This Troper was born, my cat acted the same way.

This troper knows of a neighbor of mine where the wife's sister died in a car accident and she had a baby girl prior to and no husband so they raised her daughter as one of their own they had two children prior to and only the oldest child knew about it the son was quite little at the time and he didn't know about it, this worked for quite some time as the biological daughter and the adopted daughter looked quite similar to each other, until one day I might have spread it and I regret it because I told one of my cousin's about it and presumably he told another friend and so forth so eventually it got to the point where the son found out about it he was about 14 at the time and he felt really bad that he wasn't told after all those years that she wasn't his real sister, I never learned how he dealt with it because by then they had moved away.

Uh, I'm sorry, but have you ever heard of a period?

Wait, wait I see it! There at the end! See!

Real Life Inversion. This Troper's ex-girlfriend was adopted, and was quite shocked to learn so because she had a ''striking'' resemblance to her father.

A former colleague of mine had the last name Makay and white, former-missionary parents. He was a dark-skinned South American, so it was pretty obvious he wasn't their biological child. Apparently, hilarity ensued when he tried to convince a nurse to let him in to visit his sick father in hospital ('you're telling me you're his son?').

This gay, black troper sometimes worries about this if he and his white partner ever adopt.

This Caucasian troper has an Asian wife. We have adopted a girl from her homeland. Amusingly, mother and daughter look so much alike that people from that land usually believe that our girl is a biological daughter from a previous marriage.

This troper has more than once, jokingly greeted her friends on their birthday with, "YOU'RE ADOPTED!" Imagine the shade of red when one of them responded with "It's funny, because I AM." He is. Oops.

When this troper's family found a barely-weaned kitten in a dumpster and took him in, our very maternal Blue Heeler took said kitten in and raised him, even trying to get him to nurse. Said kitten became her shadow, and was heartbroken when she died eight years later. He has very doglike characteristics, including meowing when someone rings the doorbell (his canine mama used to bark like mad - she was a living doorbell) and drinking water like a dog. Fairly recently, we got a puppy, who the cat gets along great with. The puppy has now been 'adopted' by the cat, and is learning catlike behaviors from him (sleeping in the windowsill, batting at string toys, lying down with his paws tucked under him, etc). Multigenerational example of this!

''D'awww!''