Fantastic story! I love this. Poor Digit.
And boy do I regret trapping my feral friend Freddie (he had bitten me so I had to so I could quarantine him), then taking him to be fixed, ear tipped, nails clipped and rabies vaccinated. The poor fellow had just started to trust me. After that he disappeared for a few days and I had to start nearly over getting him to trust me again. Now he's in my house at night and roaming outside during the day, so I think we've made our peace. But this story makes me so sad for all the little kittens and even the grown up cats that humans think they know so much more about how the cats should be living than the cats themselves do.