by Amy Newmark
After four days of isolation, Puckett finally had enough. When I opened the door one morning to feed her and give her fresh water, she pushed the door out of her way and marched out. Her eyes and nose were clear, and her coat was starting to grow back. She looked much healthier than she had when I first saw her at the animal shelter. She stopped to sniff noses with Percy, and satisfied that he was no threat, she stalked over to Tess and sniffed her as well. I held my breath, afraid she might have a problem with dogs. After several moments of sniffing from nose to tail, Puckett marched over to me and flopped on her side, purring and rubbing her head back and forth on the carpet, begging to be stroked.
Puckett, Percy, and Tess became fast friends. Any apprehension I had about adding a second cat to my household disappeared when I saw how easily Puckett fit in. She played with Percy, slept snuggled up to Tess, and shared my bed at night. Puckett and Tess developed a routine, a dance they performed every night, circling the kitchen side by side with Puckett directing the steps. When Tess reached one side of the kitchen, Puckett walked under her nose and turned her around to circle in the other direction. Then Tess would lie down on the floor, and Puckett would dance back and forth in front of her, running her tail under her nose.
Four weeks later, I had to leave town for a week. As Puckett wasn’t officially mine, I had to return her to the animal shelter. When I returned a week later, they told me Puckett had fallen ill again and was in quarantine. By then, I decided that the shelter atmosphere was toxic to Puckett. There were too many cats crowded together in a small room, competing for territory, dominance, and attention from the few people they see every day. Some cats stress harder than others, and I could see that Puckett struggled at the shelter. The foster volunteer asked if I wanted to take Puckett home again when she was cured, and I agreed.
When the foster volunteer called me two weeks later to tell me Puckett was recovering, I went to pick her up.
The volunteer didn’t even pretend to believe that I only planned to foster Puckett. “You’re just going to adopt her, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” I said.
“It’s Buy One Get One Free Month. Do you want this one, too?” She pointed to the cat I held in my arms. I’d picked her up and cuddled her while I waited for Puckett to get vaccinated.
“Sure,” I said.
Those shelter employees sure know a sucker when they see one.
An hour later, I went home with two cats I never knew I wanted.
I never expected my soul mate to show up in the form of a bald, snotty-nosed, twenty-pound package at the shelter, but there she was, and I’ve never regretted adopting her.
~Anita Weisheit
The Starter Cat
There is something about the presence of a cat… that seems to take the bite out of being alone.
~Louis J. Camuti
I had broken the news to my children a few days before. Their father and I were getting a divorce after twenty-five years of marriage. The oldest three had not been surprised, and offered their good wishes and moral support. But it had hit my youngest, then only thirteen, pretty hard.
For the next two days, he looked ashen, a sad shadow of his usual cheerful self. But on the third day, I noticed he stood a bit straighter, and there was color in his cheeks again. I asked him how he was doing.
“Better,” he replied, with a hint of a smile. He was adapting to the new world order. But, he added, he was trying like heck to find a silver lining in all of this turmoil. And so came the question: “Mom, now can we get a kitten?”
I had raised a family of animal lovers. I had rarely known any time in my life that had not been accompanied by a dog or two. I got my first horse when I was sixteen. I’d had a cat for a pet as a child.
But for the quarter-century I’d been married, a cat had been impossible. My husband was deathly allergic to them. But that was then. Faced with the dissolution of the family unit, the wheels in my honor-student son’s head had started to turn.
“You know, honey,” I replied. “I think so!” I reined in his enthusiasm almost immediately. We would certainly have to wait until his father was no longer under the same roof, I cautioned. My son took the qualifier in stride. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t start looking!
I called around to local shelters, inquiring about kitten availability. Nobody seemed to have any. They suggested that I call back in a month or two.
As the formalities of marriage unraveled and my husband moved into an apartment nearby, my son’s enthusiasm for a kitten only grew. I finally handed him the newspaper and suggested that he start looking at the classifieds.
He took the advice to heart, and soon afterward ambushed me in the middle of a painting project. A small ad was circled in red. “Mom, would you call this lady about this kitten?” I put the paintbrush aside, pulled off my rubber gloves, and made the call. The woman lived twenty miles away. She had just one kitten left, but another person had already asked for it. If that buyer didn’t show, we would be welcome to drive over and take a look.
A few hours later, my husband arrived to pick up the kids to take them out for dinner. My son stayed home with me, ostensibly to keep me company. In fact, he had his eyes on a bigger prize. Twenty minutes after they left, the cat lady called — the other buyer had not shown up. My son could not stop grinning at his good luck.
“I really thought that she might call tonight,” he explained, “so I wanted to stay just in case.” As we drove, a plastic carrier for the family rabbit in his lap, he was nearly quivering with excitement. I tried to dampen his anticipation. We were “only going to look,” and there was no guarantee that we’d bring this kitten home.
Inside, of course, I was praying hard that this kitten would turn out to be a good one.
The kitten was perfect: tiny, friendly, and inquisitive. He was a dynamic, eight-week-old, shorthaired fluffy ball of black with white accents. He had long white whiskers, a white tuxedo front, and white front paws that looked like they’d been dipped in cream. Mottled black and white fur on his hind feet made him look like he was wearing “footsie” pajamas.
We paid for him and raced back to the house, stopping to buy a litter box, some food, and a few cat toys. Then we whisked it all inside and hid the evidence.
Dad dropped off the kids and left, none the wiser. It took him two weeks to catch on. The rest of us, however, were enchanted. We spent the next two days passing the kitten, who we named Smokey, from lap to lap. We watched him leap and pounce, chasing a cat toy with a bell and feathers. Immediately, I hid the Easter tree, festooned with fragile eggs I had blown and hand-painted myself, that traditionally sat in the bay window.
After Easter, the girls returned to college. My older son was occupied with tennis practice and a job, and I went back to the office. I had worried about how my youngest would cope with the loneliness of an empty house during spring break. In fact, he couldn’t wait to have the house to himself. It meant that he could play with Smokey all day long without interruptions.
From being a wee, shorthaired bundle of fluff, Smokey grew… and grew… and grew. His white paws, which always seemed oversized, became enormous. The short hair grew out to be a three-dimensional coat of gossamer fluff as soft as goose down, and he shed fur balls the size of tarantulas. He turned into a very big sixteen-pound boy.
When my younger son finally left for college five years later, Smokey became my personal lap anchor. And I let my heart expand to love this perfect, miniature predator, and all the personality quirks that he brought to the table.
What I didn’t know when we brought him home was that the adoption of one tiny kitten would open the floodgates for more cats to join the family. First, my younger daughter and her college roommates adopted a kitten. Then my older son brought home a rescue cat of his own. And then my younger son — the one for whom I’d bought Smokey — and his wife adopted a tiny rescue kitten. I can’t complain. The kitten they named Finnigan later became the inspiration for my first children�
�s book, Finnigan the Circus Cat.
And now, twelve years later, Smokey the “starter cat” is still with me — a fluffy constant through thick and thin. He has outlasted the family dog, the family rabbit, my former car, two other cats, a move from the country to the city, and the motorcycle-riding, cat-phobic boyfriend I kept company with for seven years after the divorce.
Smokey still leaves fur balls the size of tarantulas around the living room. I haven’t knitted a stitch in twelve years. And those hand-painted Easter eggs are still in storage.
But at night, when the lights are out and I am about to fall asleep, Smokey leaps to the side of my pillow for one last round of purring, one last reassurance that we’re still in this game together. And I think, as I smile and drift off to sleep, that for a “starter cat,” he sure has proved to be a keeper.
~Mary T. Wagner
The Story of Greta Noelle
Blessed are those who love cats, for they shall never be lonely.
~Author Unknown
It was Christmas 2009, and we were gathered at my mother’s house. My nineteen-year-old son, Levi, and my twenty-year-old nephew, Alex, spotted her first. “Grandma, there’s a cat in the snow outside your window.”
My mother replied, “I’ll bet it’s that black cat that’s been around. I think it belongs to the neighbor.”
Alex shook his head and explained that what he was seeing illuminated by the kitchen light was a small, lighter-colored cat. At that, I was drawn out of my seat. By the time I had opened the door, the cat was ready to come in. I crouched down low to scoop her up in my hands and held her at face level as we stared at one another.
She was lightweight and cold, with ice hanging off her matted, longhaired calico coat. I knew almost immediately I was in trouble. There was something about her sweet face and floppy ragdoll body that spoke right to my heart.
I brought her closer to my chest for warmth. By the time I turned around with her in my arms, eight of my family members were standing in the kitchen observing. At the time, my sister was working for a local pet-treat operation, and I was temporarily fostering a cat named Precious for the Berkshire Humane Society. I had asked my sister to bring some of her company’s treats with her on Christmas for me to purchase and bring back to Precious, so I quickly thought to ask someone to grab them and put a few in the palm of my hand. They disappeared so quickly it gave me a sense of how starved the little bundle in my arms was.
By now, my mother had gone into her cupboard, retrieved a bowl of cat food, and handed it to me. I knelt down with the little stray and placed her on the floor in front of it. I was surprised that my usually loud, Greek family was being so quiet and still. While she ate, I petted her and wondered, What now? I looked up at the faces of my family and saw my seventy-five-year-old aunt who lives alone. I thought, Even though she’s never had a pet, she lives alone, and her home would be an ideal spot for this cat to land. Then I looked over to my sister and said to myself, If our aunt doesn’t work out, then my sister would surely take this cat since she lost hers not that long ago. And I thought, If that doesn’t work out, then my mother will take her since her cat is fourteen years old, and she might like to have another one. Then there was my niece, Rachel, who was already begging my brother to take the cat home to New York.
In my book, this cat had a home. Or four.
But it turned out that no one wanted the stray, so I ended up taking her home. The encounter with Precious did not go well, so I kept them separated for a few days while I figured out a game plan. I called all the area vets and shelters. I took a picture of the Christmas stray and made a poster to hang in various locations near my parents’ home and in vet offices. I brought her to Allen Heights Veterinary Hospital — the only vet that offered to look her over for me — and they shaved off the mats tangled in her fur and told me she seemed sweet.
And then, because I was fostering Precious for another month or two, and I never received any calls from the ads I placed, and both cats were obviously under duress, I surrendered the stray to the same Berkshire Humane Society I was on assignment with.
Over the next few weeks, I became a frequent visitor to the Berkshire Humane Society to see how the sweet, longhaired calico was doing. I noticed things about her each time I went that I hadn’t noticed the time before. For example, half of her nose was orange, and half was gray. Her back legs were pure white and looked like fluffy bloomers. And she had a shorter tail than most cats.
The volunteers there would allow me into the back room where she was being treated medically and let me take her out of her cage. She would let me hold her and rock her, loudly purring the whole time. Her disposition was very sweet.
Finally, on one of my visits, a volunteer told me that the now-healthier stray was almost ready to be moved to a cage in the viewing room in hopes that someone would adopt her. I went home sad that day. The next day, I called and asked if they would keep her in the back room for a little longer. They agreed.
Over the next day or two, I reasoned that I might not have surrendered her had she and Precious gotten along. I considered that I was all set up with a foster-cat room in my house and could easily bring her home to that room, keeping Precious in the main part of the house until she could go back to her owner. It didn’t take much to convince myself that living in one room for a while would be better than being confined to a cage. And last, I remembered that for the past four months, while I had been home on medical leave from my middle-school teaching job recovering from back surgery, I wished many times that I had a cat at home to keep me company.
So I marched into the Humane Society a few days later and purchased my own Christmas kitty back for $125.
What I didn’t realize then was that she would be my savior eighteen months later when I was tangled up in a bicycle accident. I sustained a traumatic brain injury that caused another eight months out of work while I found my footing again. She became the answer to one of my prayers during that time, giving me comfort, company, warmth, joy, purpose, and familiarity at a time when nothing much in my life seemed recognizable.
For a few months after she came home to live with us, she did not have a name. A perfect cat needed a perfect name, I rationalized. There were many offerings from friends and family members, with Noelle being at the top considering she was discovered on Christmas. None seemed to work for me. Finally, my husband returned home from work one day and found her sitting on the top step waiting for him. I heard his booming, deep voice say, “Greta! What’s happening?” And that was that. She is Greta Noelle.
~Stacia Giftos Bissell
Mission Impossible
What greater gift than the love of a cat.
~Charles Dickens
Dad’s behavior changed radically after Mom, his wife of sixty-five years, died. He exhibited behaviors that were totally uncharacteristic of the man we knew. He was depressed and disoriented.
His grown children lived a thousand miles away, so my sister and I convinced him to get a cat. He had always been an animal lover. We knew with his mobility problems he would need a pet service, but that was not a problem in the retirement community where he lived.
Dad said he would name the cat Joe. Male or female, the cat would be Joe.
Since I was the semi-professional animal person of the family, I was elected to find the right cat for Dad. I had therapy dogs, so I knew what it took for a successful pet partner for an elderly man. This assignment would be a challenge since I lived far away from Dad’s home in San Antonio, Texas.
Being somewhat uncoordinated, very clumsy, and sometimes a bit loud, Dad was not the ideal cat parent. I made a list of requirements: shorthaired, laid-back, not needy, very confident, friendly, adaptable, and strictly indoors. The retirement community had strict rules about pet behavior, so the cat would have to be somewhat obedient. Dad had one request: The cat needed to be big.
My challenge narrowed down to almost impossible. Being a champion of rescue adoptions, I started contacting S
an Antonio area rescues and shelters in late September. My target adoption date was Thanksgiving, as I would be visiting Dad then and I could get him set up with a cat.
Responses came in immediately. My animal-professional side asked the hard questions. I did not want a cat that hid under the bed or would be easily intimidated by wheelchairs, walkers, and the like. If the cat was afraid of my father, it might be disastrous to Dad’s emotional wellbeing. It would be very hard to find a shelter cat that would work.
None of the available rescue cats seemed right. They were small, a bit flighty, longhaired, too old, indoor/outdoor, and on and on. I refused to lower my standards.
Thanksgiving was quickly approaching, and I started getting worried. Surely within 200 miles of San Antonio there had to be a cat for Dad. Unfortunately, I knew the wonderful cat I wanted was not the kind of cat that would be given up to a shelter.
I was scheduled to arrive the Monday before Thanksgiving, and I was batting zero. I was very frustrated. I did not want to disappoint my dad. He had perked up at the prospect of getting a cat.
I searched shelters in my area, thinking I could transport the cat to Texas, but I still could not find the right cat.
Four days before my Thanksgiving visit, I received an e-mail from a San Antonio shelter. They said they had a cat that might work.
I called and asked, “Is he big?”
“Yes.”
“Is he friendly?”
“Yes, very.”
“Has he been an indoor cat?”
“Yes, he is declawed.”