I was curious and started reading into it, apparently the ancient Egyptians used to call electric fish (as they hadn’t discovered electric eels by that point) “Thunderer of the Nile”

My father has a service dog through Paws for Purple Hearts/Bergin and one of the early commands they are taught is a release command that is for these kinds of situations. My father only really uses it for kids that are enamored with his dog but there are the rare situations where it is appropriate to ask if you can say hi.

It really sounds like you gave him a great life that nobody else would have. Without you they would have died a feral cat only knowing struggle within the unending fight for food and warmth. With you they got to know love and got to leave all that struggle behind. You did good.