How We Met Our Kitties

 

Anne Threston

Lucy came along as a wee kitten when I was going through a particularly rough patch. The late Tabitha, well, I saw her, fell in love, and never looked back. The late Sid just showed up, and never left. Victor kicked another cat off my lap when I was auditioning felines at the cat orphanage, and Henri came along just as I was agonizing over the last few weeks of Tabitha's life.

Cats know. And somehow they know that three is the proper number, at least right now.

Artemis

Both Mick and Cassie came to me through a friend of a friend. Mick was part of a litter of my friend's sister's cat and was the only one unclaimed. Cassie was discovered, along with her mom and littermates, by a large, bouncy dog in somebody's backyard and again was the last unclaimed of the group. I guess it's time to adopt another kitten so I can have a cool story, right??

BeVERly

TC was a dumpster cat, a feral at the place DH works. They come, they don't last long. DH noticed this one seemed to be missing part of his left rear leg. He started calling him TC, short for "Three-Claw," and started feeding him. When he finally 'fessed up, I insisted we catch him, vet him, and if possible, bring him home. We'd been catless 8 years since Jenny had died and DH's allergies had cleared up.

It took DH and a younger, longer-limbed, more agile friend a week to catch TC, he was treated for worms, fleas, ticks, earmites, and neutered. Someone made the mistake of letting him out of his cage and it took three techs to catch him and they all had scars. He got a large red "WILD!" on his chart.

It took about two weeks of patient socializing for TC to be willing to be in the same space with humans, to lie out in the open. His leg, missing the foot from a traumatic amputation (we'll never know exactly what happened), wasn't healing, so he had the leg surgically amputated between hip and knee, and has never looked back.

He's a goofy, silly, sweet and spooky boy and we love him lots.

Bbudke

-- Cats Who Needed a Home at a time when I had room for a cat

This is the feline terror squad in its entirety. First, Roscoe and Louie as little hyper monster kittens who were going to be sent to the shelter because they were so "active", and then Stella as a 9 month old who had already lived in four homes. When her last owner came by to visit a month after he'd left her with us, Stella took one look at him and ran under the couch. "No WAY! I'm NOT GOING!"

Calamity Jeanne

Willie was a stray four-month-old kitten who followed me home. I was living in Two Harbors, MN at the time, and had my mail delivered to a post office box. The previous evening, I'd loaned my car to my sister, so I had to make my post office run on foot. When I turned into the alley that ran behind my house, there was this cute little amber-eyed tuxedo boy scampering around. He came running up to me, meowing hello. I bent down and gave him a few ear- and chin-scritches, then continued on home. He followed me. I sat on the back porch with him for a while. He would dash across the back lawn, then dash back up onto the porch for more attention and affection. This went on for an hour.

Then, while petting him, I realized that I could really feel his ribs. Since I had some cat food in the apartment left over from a cat-sitting gig a few weeks beforehand, I decided to take him inside and give him something to eat.

He chowed down a huge bowl of kibble, then hopped up on the arm of the sofa where I was sitting, let a huge fart, and fell asleep. That was October 24, 1995 (I remember the date because October 24 is also my niece's birthday).

Sarah was gotten a year later at the home of a woman who fostered dogs and cats for the Carlton County Friends of Animals. I called first, to find out if she had any orange kitties, as I wanted to get a companion for Willie, and I was kind of hankering for an orange tabby. She said that she had lots of kittens in all kinds of colors, and why didn't I drive out there and have a look? So, on the following Sunday afternoon, I did. Sure enough, there were orange kittens, both males and females, but there was something about this tiny, goofy-looking, squeaky-voiced little tortie sitting there all by herself that really appealed to me.

Catling

Five came out of a small pet store in Tennessee. (no shelters around where we lived) He was a small blue kitten with a broken tail who was scared of the entire world. We chose him and brought him home. Then when we let him out of the carrier, he disappeared for three days. At least food was getting eaten so we knew he still was there. He's not as scared anymore, and fairly affectionate, but just a little too aware of the world to ever really relax.

I like to think Zed chose us. It was just after 9/11 and I was feeling pretty fragile. We walked into the vet clinic that had been advertising kittens for adoption, and Zed looked up at us, and immediately started making a purr that was much too loud for his tiny self. It was like he was saying "you are my people. You must take me home." And we did.

I later learned that the devilish people at the vet clinic teach all the kittens they raise to do the "You will take me home." routine when someone comes close to their cages to give them a pat.

CJ Griffin

None of my cats picked me -- I chose Zenobia out of her litter because she was the one who went exploring instead of hiding. She was a beautiful kitten and I regret now that I wasn't around for as much of her kittenhood as I would have liked. (I'm trying to make up for it with Camilla!)

The rest were all Cats Who Needed a Home at a time when I had room for a cat.

Deborah Grabien

(deep breath)

Cats, indoor:

1. Chino, the persian, only non-rescue. Saw her in a pet store window and nearly died, she was so gorgeous. Jo (aged about 11) said, "she wants us." She did. And she got us.

2. Gadabout, my silverback male: schoolmate of Jo's found a family of feral kittens, tiny, less than a month; mom had come to grief. Found homes for all but this one. Jo brought him home in her jacket pocket, age 1 month, coal black, muscled, fearless. This was late 1988. We adore him.

3. Mallory, rescued at age 4 weeks or so, was nearly shredded; she'd climbed into a car motor in a rainstorm to keep warm. Guy heard her crying, told friend who told us, and that's Mal.

4-8. The next 4 came in one lump sum: feeding our outdoor cats on the back poch, we noticed a skinny underfed starving tabby kitten. Totally feral, hissed, wouldn't approach, stealing food from Puff. We discovered she had four kittens of her own, socialised her and the kittens over the space of about two weeks, began letting them in to the sunporch. One day we closed the door when they were all inside and they never left. That was Mamacat Slim with her babies: Cartman, Calico Wendy, Stanley and Kyle the Amazing Frankenstein-Torty.

9. Dru; We didn't know, when we locked them all indoors, that Slim had got knocked up a second time. The second litter was born indoors. Three of them (Spike, Igon and Oz) were given to highly-vetted homes. Dru was dying when I got home and found Slim in labor; she'd been first born and rolled off the pillow and Slim was birthing and nursing and couldn't get her. I picked her up, made Slim lick her, stuffed a teat into her mouth and made her drink. The little psychobitch is my baby.

10-13: You know about Grey, and how she stepped in antifreeze, and how we rescued this batch. My Tiny Tabbies of whom only one is a tabby: Buffy, Willow, Rupert and Perfect Thomas the Tank Kitten. Whew. There.

The two outdoor stories are very similar: Puff showed up one day in the rain, a big flufy orange and white longhair, yelling for food. She wasn't feral; far too people-friendly, far too well-fed. We fed her, watered her, flea-combed her, put up signs. Nothing. She made herself at home on the front porch and hasn't left since. It's been about four, maybe five years. We'd have her indoors in a heartbeat but there's no way; she's violently aggressive with other queens, all of them, even kittens.

Bill, we were looking out the front door glass down our long stairs. I was wondering if I ought to go down and refresh Puff's water dish when a big rangy orange and white boy with white 'Bloom County" Bill the Cat cheeks slunk up, glanced around, and began to lap frantically. I brought down a bowl of dry, he shot off under the chaise and glared and talked - very Siamese voice.

He never left either. He and Puff tolerate each other; sometimes they catch field mice in tandem.

DianeB

Pyewacket was born in a furniture store up in the South Bronx almost 18 years ago. The place was around the corner from where I was working, and one lunch time I went out to explore and came back with her. She was wending her way across the various dressers when I spotted her from the street, and the owner of the store didn't really want her. No one else would take her as she was the runt of her litter, but she has the cutest little bat face (no bias there!).

Fennel came from a former boss of mine, 14 years ago. She was a penthouse cat, but my boss' boyfriend was allergic to cats, so away to Alphabet City she was taken. Quite a drop down in the world for her, as she usually spent summer weekends out in the Hamptons. I try to make up for her caviar tastes with albacore tuna, it's a losing battle but she loves me anyway.

Bast's Gift came from a neighbor in my building who had given me my first cat (VT, my vodka tonic girl) some 18 years ago. VT died on January 3, 1995, and Gift was born on May 28, 1995. The neighbor knew I'd just lost VT, and asked if I wanted a kitten. What surprised me was that the speech she gave me was almost word for word the tirade she used to get rid of VT (we don't want this cat, going to throw it out, etc.). So I figured this was a gift from the lady Bast, as well as VT putting up a notice that an idiot human servant needed a new master, lol.

And Sal, who's getting used to the clutter and cats, moved two flights down into my fourth floor apartment.

Diva

Henry was discovered in a place called Capitola Critters. My then BF, now SU, had been telling me how wrong and completely contrary it was for me, who so loves all catses, to remain catless for five years in honor of the memory of my incomparable Rufus (I'll have to scan one of his pics in one day, he was truly a magnificat - huge, extra toes on all paws, jet black, long-haired, plume tail, went for walks, and with a wonderful gentle goofy personality - and he'd been Mine since he was 30 seconds old). I thought that any other cat would only suffer in comparison.

So to Henry. I walked in, just to look, mind you. And here was a cage full of various types of tiny tabbies - mackerel, striped, spotted, splotched - and they let me open the cage to play with them. The mackerel tabby crawled up my leg and mewed plaintively, but somehow that didn't do it for me. She was too clingy. The splotched one, however, strolled out and parked his tiny splotched butt in front of the ajoining cage, which held a Peke puppy. Peke puppy went apeshit, yapping hysterically and throwing itself at the front of the cage, trying to get at the kitten. Splotched guy didn't even flinch, just cocked his head as if to say "WTF is YOUR problem?" I picked him up and he regarded me with equanimity, but also purred in a friendly way: "Hello, big hairless cat. Do you want to pet my belly? That would be OK. You could take me home if you want, too." Obvioulsy he was His Own Cat. I took him home, and expected not to see him for a few days as he hid and checked out his new digs - but no. Henry jumped out of the box and said "Cool! Where's the food? Where are the toys? Ooh, bookshelves. I'm gonna climb those. Hey, is that a window? Is this a bedroom? Oh boy, a balcony!" Tail up, ears forward, eyes wide, which is how he always is, unless he's asleep.

You all know the dramatic tearjerking story of Critter's rescue, if not, it's at the TT Kitty Page. Taz was a neighbor's cat and the whole neighborhood's friend, who so gradually insinuated himself into our lives that I can hardly remember when he wasn't here. And SU went and got Jesse from the first shelter he could find stocked with kittens in the spring after his Billcat died. Darling Jesse being another of those one-in-a lifetime supercats, like Rufus was, of course. Like they all are.

Goldie Kitten's Unfolding Story:

BTW, we completely bypassed all manner of getthekitty tonight (March 17, 2003) by discovering that our neighborhood bar and grill had rescued three orange kittens, two boys and one girl, from an uncertain fate in the front seat of an abandoned car. We now have unnamed taffy colored girl kitten, about ten days old, upstairs in a basket with husband's thermal shirt sleeping off her first exciting night with the Big Hairless Cats. She's so little her eyes are barely open, and I must brave whatever massive snowfall we get tonight to get her a pet nurser tomorrow, and her stripes, which we feel are all but predetermined, are not yet visible. We have just become, willy-nilly, a five-cat household. Suckers? No, not us. What would make you say that?

Later: Her name is (tentatively) Goldie. Because she us a little gold precious furry thing and completely adorable.

Later: But we both have been well and truly conquered, in the course of a couple of hours, by one tiny helpless golden female kitten. Which is as it should be, since after all we have room and love enough, and a rescued kitten we weren't actually looking for will lift our hearts in these troubled times. Please welcome Goldie to our common catmangerie.

Fergus

JEREMY:

My partner and I had two cats, Fergus and Bela. We lived (at the time) in a two bedroom apartment, and so, the four of us were a family, and filled up the place pretty well. Neither of us had any interest in getting another pet.

Well, a dear friend of mine does animal rescue work. She called me one Saturday in a tizzy. A woman had died of a drug overdose, and had left behind five grown cats. The vet where these animals had gotten their shots had taken them in, but could only house them for a limited amount of time. Laura (my friend) begged me to go down and take a look. I told her that we couldn't possibly take in another cat, but that I couldn't bear to think of any of them being put down. She said (that sly thing!) "Well, just go check them out and try to think of friends who might want a pet."

So, I did.

They were all cute cats, but it is hard for me to see them in cages like that, especially knowing that their lives had changed forever. Mommie wasn't coming home. Two of them were brothers, and were in a cage together. Another was a beautiful Persian. I don't honestly remember the fourth, I think he was a Tabby. In the fifth cage sat Jeremy (although, at the time his name was J.R.). On the front of the cage was a sign that read:

EAR LICKER

He was checking me out with those fiercy bright and intelligent eyes, and rubbing up against the front of the cage. I asked the vet assistant if I could hold him, and she got him out.

Sure enough, he hugged up against my chest and almost immediately started licking my earlobes. I found it somewhat disturbing. It also tickled. And then he started purring, so loud it was like holding a buzzsaw. I pulled his face away so I could see his eyes; he was staring intently at me, and in such a trusting and loving manner that my eyes welled up with tears.
I knew Jeremy had found his new home. This was six years ago.

He continues to this day to love to suck earlobes, and to purr like a buzzsaw. It doesn't bother me anymore. He moved in and was at home immediately. No adjustment period at all. It was as if he'd always been there. The other cats accepted him graciously.

He's truly a "one-of-a-kind" kitty. (I know, they ALL are!) But Jeremy's our "party kitty" --- whenever we have people over he's right in the thick of things; curious, loving, and always purring... (and looking for willing earlobe volunteers!).

FERGUS:

Fergus is a very handsome little Tuxedo kitty. I got him from the Humane Society when he was just four months old. I immediately loved the little guy, he was into everything (what kitten isn't?) and very fearless.

Well, I took him to get his shots, and the vet brought him out to me and said that Fergus had a terrible heart condition and I should just immediately put him down. That's it. No compassion, no alternatives. Just kill 'im.

Needless to say, I didn't follow that Vet's advice, and I also never went back to him again. Even if this sweet young thing had a less-than-stellar life expectancy, I just couldn't get over the lack of compassion coming from this supposed "Doctor".

I just showered the little guy with love, and soon found a new Vet. When he was a little older, I had them do an ultrasound on him, and it was true: He did indeed have a malformed heart. But this Vet gave me options. He put Fergus on some sort of heart med (can't remember now, it's been awhile) and also 1/4 of a baby aspirin twice a week, to thin his blood a bit.

I gave Fergus those pills religiously for years. That's why I'm pretty good at pilling cats, although it sure didn't help this morning! :-) I only stopped when the Vet did a second Ultrasound and said that his heart seemed to have somehow (at least partially) mended itself. The murmur was not totally gone, but it was all but gone.

Fergus is now eleven years old. And very healthy, and happy.

Fraro

Baba was a sweet little cat with a red collar with a bell on it, and the way I met her was through my mother, who went to this vet office all the time to pick up cat food and such for her cat Louisa. Apparently Daphne had been cast off to the vet's office by her former owners with another cat, Fiona. I don't remember why, but it was some kind of lame reason like they were moving or they had a kid or something.

Anyway baba was very friendly and got up on my lap and stayed there. I couldn't very well not take her home with me now could I? I think, gosh, that I was 16. Noooooooo. She's not that old.

I have never called her Daphne, I guess because she's too much of a babachen to me. My little grandmother, hovering over me.

Julie L.

You got yer grey classic tabby, Spot, with dark swirls on a paler speckled background, but also dark belly spots against a pure cream-colored background. And you got yer aforementioned supposedly all-grey cat that isn't, named Shadow. (He also has a very small white patch at his throat, and is alarmingly smart. When I try to plant a toy somewhere so they can play on their own, he goes to the base and pulls it off the floor/wall. Earlier this week, I saw him reaching for the doorknob.)

A bit of cat backstory first-- the kittens were born on the local college campus, just outside the cluster of lab buildings where my husband spent his grad-school years. During his sentence there, the space between the buildings was home to a stately grey cat which he nicknamed "The Great Grey Cat Who Reigns". When I saw their pix on the rescue webpage, I sent it to my husband speculating that Shadow might be a descendant. This produced the closest thing to enthusiasm he'd shown during my previous months of emailing him shelter-kitty pix-- he concurred, saying that he had the same imperious stare-- and before he knew it, we had cats :)

(The Great Grey Cat turned out to have a more formal name, "Photon Echo". Apparently just a few years ago, when she was getting a bit tottery, she received a glancing hit from a car and ran for help to the nearest people, a bunch of guys on the sidewalk. They promptly consigned themselves to the most abysmal chasms of Cat Hell by *kicking* her. Luckily, a nearby grad student scooped her up, took her to a vet, and eventually provided the home for Photon to spend her last few years in peace and safety.)

Anyway, someone evidently abandoned the kittens' tame, pregnant mom shortly before she gave birth. They were all taken in by the college rescue group and the rest is history, though I think their mom and sister still haven't been adopted.

The volunteers said their mom looks like she might have Siamese ancestry? though I don't know enough about standard cat anatomy to compare them with a standard American shorthair. They have started to show a few behavioral pointers in that direction, though-- they'll pick up things in their mouth and trot around with them, and they've started to greet me by meowing. And meowing. And meowing some more until some arbitrary level of meow has been reached and they stop. It's not just the klaxon call to food/water/litter/scritch duty, either. It's just meowtime.

Kammat

When I first visited the shelter, I still had to be approved to handle/select a cat, but was allowed to look around at them. There were several lovely cats there, but Big Guy was in a good sized cage in the first room, just chilling there. When I went to put the pet deposit down at the rental office, I put his name in, even though I still had no idea who I would choose. When I went back after being approved, BG was the kitty in the window. I played with him a bit, which mostly involved him rubbing against me, but he didn't like being picked up. I put him back, and went to look at the others. The other two who really caught my eye were Molly, a 10 yr old little tuxedo female, who was friendly enough through the bars, but when we opened the door to play a bit, she was deeply scared to come out. THe other was Colorado, a light smoke grey cat who had come in that day, and was still too scared to really get along. So, BG just felt like he fit in the best, and he came home that day.

He still complains when I pick him up for a hug at times, but I think he likes them now.

Karl Northman

Moonlight definitely picked us. She showed up in front of our house in November 15 years ago, maybe about 8 months old. No one had ever seen her before in the neighborhood. My wife had been over in St. Paul buying groceries just before she showed up, and is convinced that Moonlight just got into the car while Elaine was going back and forth from the cart to the car with bags.

Moonlight sat outside the front door and begged. Erik was 6 then, and Elaine called me at work and said "We've got this cat that I think I accidentally brought home, it's outside and it's freezing (it was maybe 15) and it just sits outside the door and looks at us."

I foolishly said something that I get beat with regularly - I said "I've always had a weakness for black cats", and suggested they let it onto the front porch until I got home.

Well, once on the front porch, she invented a new technique that she can still, even at 16, use, and it worked. The technique was to do this [photo may not be available; see description below] and look in the window and do her silent meow.

(I took that last week - it's the first time ever that I've managed to catch her doing it, since now when she sees someone coming she drops off because she knows you're going to let her in). She's hanging by her claws from the edge of the window - it's just over four feet up.

Kristinff

Hubby and I had just moved to a new city and I decided that I really wanted a cat. He agreed, and since we knew that some of the other people in our building had cats, we decided to go to the shelter before checking with the building manger to get official permission. There weren't too many kittens, but we came across a cage with three incredibly fluffy baby girls in varying shades of grey and white. Two were very friendly and one hid at the back of the cage. We fell in love and asked about the shelters adoption policy. They said they could hold the two friendlies for us until the next day, so we went home to talk to the manager. She told us that the landlord was not happy about his tenants having cats and that he required a $350 pet deposit. We were not happy as we were starving students, but we paid the deposit and went back the next day to pick up the kittens. We were shocked to discover that the shelter had allowed someone to adopt the two friendly girls, despite their promise to us, and only the third shy, hiding sister was left. So we took her home. 13 years later, she is our beautiful and grumpy anti-social Isabella. I wouldn't trade her for a friendly cat if I could!

The Mitten came along a few years later when we had moved into a big sprawling apartment complex. I came home one day and saw a neighbor being followed to her door by a small black and white tuxedo kitty. Didn't think much of it until Hubby came home about two hours later and asked me if I had seen the kitty outside. It had come up to him when he got out of his car, and being the old softy that he is, he stopped to pet it and talk to it. It then followed him to our front door where it sat and waited. I peeked out the window a saw the same black and white kitty I had seen earlier, sitting on the neighbor's doormat. It was December and about 35 degrees outside. Poor kitty had picked the only spot that wasn't concrete to sit on. I could see that the kitty had a pink collar on, so I went out to see if there was a name or phone number on it. Picked up the small, shivering kitty who instantly clung to me like a little limpet. The collar had no ID so I was just holding her and looking at her. She was not a kitten, but clearly not fully grown. Obvoiusly cared for and healthy, but freezing after being outside all afternoon. And then I saw the paws. White feet with six toes that looked just like little mittens. Hubby looked out the door to see what I was doing and I said, "She's got six toes! I have to bring her inside!" And that was that. We put up signs and put an ad in the paper, but no one ever claimed her. We named her Molly The Mitten and we've had her for about 9 years now.

OK, I've made myself all sniffly...

LDV

Melmo came to me when he was 8 months old. He'd had a home, but the 2-year-old he lived with had trouble distinguishing him from a stuffed animal. She tried to pick Melmo up by grabbing him around the neck with both hands, and he bit her. The family then decided to find him another home.

Peaches was abandoned by his former family when he was an estimated nine years old - they moved to Arizona and left him behind in the house they vacated. A coworker told me this story just a couple of weeks after I'd lost Garp, and Melmo seemed to be very lonely.

Big Gray Al was rescued from a ditch in an alley in South Philadelphia by a friend of mine. She went on to found the People-Pet Partnership, and Al is credited as being the organization's first rescue and "mascot." I estimate him to be about six years old.

Frankie was rescued from Frankford Avenue in Philadelphia by yours truly. She was preggers when I first encountered her, but I had her spayed and aborted. The vet thinks she's no more than a year old.

My take on their "gratefulness": all of Da Boyz appear to be devoted and grateful. All of the girlkitties I've had have demonstrated a definite sense of entitlement!

Leigh-cheri

I think I chose all of my kitties, but in a universal way, they chose me. I was not actively looking for a cat when each one would appear and it always love at first sight.

My brother found Kosmo on a street running below a freeway and Momo was found in Lake Tahoe by a friend who couldn't keep him. Daisy I got when I went to a friend's house to pick her up for a concert. She had had a stray kitty give birth to a litter under her house. I could not resist the 7 babies climbing the walls. Daisy had the biggest eyes and was just a doll. Griffin was another one I inadvertantly fell in love with as I peered at him through a cage at a pet adoption event.

Griffin's foster mom said that when he was at the shelter waiting to be put to sleep, anytime anyone would walk into the room he would run to the front of his cage and purr ( and his purr is the loudest I've ever heard). The shelter staff thought he was so sweet they kept moving his "kill" date back. Luckily, his foster mom got him out in time. And lucky for me, I met Griffin.

When I got Daisy as a kitten she was only 4 weeks old. She still had fuzzy vision and would approach my face to suckle on my nose. So I offered her a blue thermal baby blanket in exchange to suck on which she immediately took to. To this day, over four years later, she still has that blanket and she still sucks on it. The blanket's name is woobie.

Lily Delafield

Cookie and Mouse were too shy to initiate contact with us, but Magic picked me at the shelter. He reached out of his cage and repeatedly poked my shoulder--cute, huh? Ten years and 10,000 pokes later, it's a little less cute, but he clearly still thinks I am his.

Pipsqueak also picked us--he scrambled out of the pile of littermates he was snoozing with and clambered straight up my arm when I put my hand into the cage.

M

Taffy was about 1 year old when I adopted her from a shelter. She was cowering in the back of the cage. When she jumped out the box for the first time, she slunk around the walls and hid most of the time.

It took a few weeks until she felt comfortable hanging out in the same room and would walk directly instead of following a wall. By the time she was with me 2 months, she was waiting at the apartment door, meowing as she heard me walk up the steps.

I felt so bad about leaving her alone all day, that I got her a companion, Rita.

Maia Cowan

How often do cats choose us vs. us choosing the cats? I chose Lightfoot, she being far too dignified to beg for release from Pet Prison (the cage at the pet store). But she indicated her approval of my house almost immediately upon arriving "home", so that was okay.

Alexander chose me, making it very clear that my shoulder was his shoulder for sitting on, and there he was going to stay.

The pet store (I'd already made the rounds of the shelters) had several cats, in the same room with the dogs. Lightfoot, unlike the other cats, was Completely Unimpressed when the dogs started barking at me. I admired her sang froid as much as her cushy black coat.

Alex was 8 weeks old when I brought him home, such a teeny little beast we couldn't even see whether he was a male or female.

I came into the house and set down the cat carrier, and Lightfoot immediately came into the room to find out what was happening.

When they saw each other, he hissed at her.

I'd already decided to keep the cats separate until I could get Teeny Kitten to the vet and checked out for contagiables, so I took the carrier into the spare room, which I'd equipped with a litter box, bowls of food and water, and a Fluffy Pillow. I set down the carrier and opened the door. Alex came bouncing out, spied the foodbowl, commenced to purring so I could almost feel the vibrations through the floor, and kept purring like a Teeny Tiny Energetic Purry Thing for a solid hour.

We won't talk about what happened when I decided it would be best if he slept in my bedroom, but in the carrier Just In Case he wasn't fully litter-trained. Let's just say he spent the night on my pillow.

And the next morning he had a lovely time playing Bed Hockey with my feet.

I think of Lightfoot as a sort of rescue because she'd been in the pet store (which had acquired her, they said, from a couple who didn't want to take her to California with them) for at least three months. That, to me, seemed an horrible length of time to live in a cage. So I brought her home, and after looking around the basement she jumped to the back of the sofa and arranged herself decoratively and looked at me, "This will do. You may serve me."

MollyT

I see other people with their cats, and I see my Murphy, and I love Murphy best. He's mine, but I didn't pick him and Avery out, they're what came when I called Dial-a-Kitty. Just like Ozzie belongs with my roommie, my brother found his feline alter ego in a barn cat he named Booger, Friend 1 deserves the little terror that is Tabitha, Friend 2 has the most "Friend 2" kitty ever in Ginger, etc.

Kitty karma puts cats in the right place at the right time to find their right human.

Peggy

I picked Munch out of a litter on my grandparents' farm. She was the only calico in the bunch, and that settled it.

Neek's story is a bit more dramatic...

A year after we got Munch, we were at my grandparents having a bonfire and cookout. I walked up to the farmhouse to use the bathroom and on my way, heard a kitten crying for help. Honing in on the cries, I spied a standpipe (about 1.5 feet in diameter, about 5 feet tall, but buried a couple of feet in the ground, vertically). It was a discharge pipe for kitchen wastewater. There was a lid on the pipe but it had a hole in it.

I removed the lid and saw a tiny, wet kitten, standing chest deep in yukky water. I tried to lean over the pipe to retrieve her but couldn't reach. I got my grandfather to help and we ended up lowering a basket down into the pipe and then using a broom to scoop the kitty into the basket.

I took the kitten into the house and washed her up and dried her -- uncovering a beautiful, long-haired tortie. And there was no way I wasn't going to keep her after that.

Phyl Good

The way I met Pieces was when she was 8 weeks old, and my mom and youngest brother had gone to get her from his friend's place when he was giving away some kittens. Pieces was supposed to be my brother's cat, but mom put her to sleep in a shoe box in the closet, in the room mom and I shared at the time, with a very fluffy slipper in it to serve as a bed. But poor baby Pieces laid in there and cried and cried in the night until I finally couldn't stand it any more. I went and got her and brought her to bed with me, holding her on my chest. And I became her mom, and that was always how we started every night we lived together -- with her lying on my chest, purring.

Kashi and I met on my birthday, July 31, 1991. I was grieving over Pieces, who had left me 4 months earlier at 16 years of age, and had no real intention of getting another cat. But when I opened eight-month-old Kashi's cage at the Calgary Humane Society, she stood up, rubbed her head against my chin, and began to eat, ravenously, purring all the while. It was as though she'd been waiting for someone to come along and make her feel safe enough to be able to eat. I decided that I would trust her judgement, since she obviously knew something I didn't know yet.

She was right. For two years after she came to live with me, I nicknamed her "Bright One" because she brought incredible light into my life. Then I discovered that the name "Kashi," a Sanskrit word, actually means "Shining." From the very beginning, Kashi was the most shining being in the world.

When I first met Peaches & Pan, their foster mom put them in the same room as me, but of course, being feral kittens, they hid behind a low table the whole time. So I laid down on the carpet and peered at them in the 6 inches of space under the table, and talked to them for 1-1/2 hours. They never did let me approach closer, or come out from behind the table (I've mentioned that Pan took exactly a year before he let me pet him the first time). But I decided that they really needed a mom who would try to be patient and let them grow secure at their own speed, so later I phoned their foster mom and told her I would take them.

Rosella

Jennie chose me -- she was one of a litter of Siamese kittens, and she pranced out of the huddle of littermates, did a stiff-legged little dance with her back arched and her toothpick tail bushed out, then came over to me and said hello, can I come home with you? The other kitties just sat there, so, of course she could and did, and stayed for 20 years. Kiri came two months after Jennie died -- a rescue kitty, who had been rejected because she was "too noisy". Helloooo! Siamese ARE noisy. And, I love the noise -- it's very companionable to have a verbal cat -- not that they aren't all lovely, but I like the chitchat.

Sasha Miller

We found her in the vet's office. Someone there had found her and brought her in, and there she was in a box with a sign, "Free kitty". At the time, we had Elizabeth, the Burmese, and C.A. had brought home Jenny, the Russian Blue. Jen was driving Elizabeth batty, wanting to play, and we didn't know it then but Elizabeth was going downhill in a particularly unfortunate auto-immune disease Burms sometimes get, where they reject their own blood.

C.A. didn't much want three cats racketing around a condominium, but I convinced him that the kittens would keep each other busy and Elizabeth could get some peace and quiet, so she came home with us.

Little did I realize that not only was she The Most Beautiful Cat In Existence (see my lovely profile? she's saying in one of those pics), but also terrifyingly intelligent.

We didn't have a chance. Not a chance.

When we brought The Princess home and I let her out of that little cardboard carrier, Jenny was right there, kitty-on-the-spot.

So she walked out, squarely into Jenny. They bumped noses, and both sat down. At that point, I could see the little thought balloons over their heads: Huh. We're supposed to hiss and growl now, aren't we. Okay, you hiss, I'll growl, let's play.

Then they climbed the drapes.

Shelley Kay

My "how we met" stories. I've had Loki Squish Bugslayer, Esq., longer than my husband. I picked him when I made my "first grocery store run" for my new apartment. He was in a box outside the grocery store, tended by two earnest-looking boys. He was little and scruffy and charcoal gray. I figured I was making a big store run to pick up all the staples. A cute little gray kitty was definately a must-have. He grew up to lose his gray, and grow a butter-soft coat of inky black, with gold eyes.

Frida "Hairball" came to me in a dream. I dreamed that there was a cat in a cage, sitting in her litter box, and she was a calico. The next "scene" she was tabby. I woke up and ran to the humane society, and shore nuff. There she was, a calico tabby, curled up in her litter box. She picked me.

Ivy "Shithead" picked us. She showed up on our doorstep with swollen teats and a red collar. She'd apparently been kicked out of her house for being a tramp. She is the peach/gray/beige/white dilute calico who is now about 17 pounds and just... bitchy... to everyone except me. With me, she's a lazy, purring-till she-drools, portable water bottle who sits on me whenever possible.

Shadow the dog also dreamed his way to me. I dreamed about a border collie I had as a child. I raced down to the humane society, and boom. There he was. He was found trapped in a drainage ditch in rural Texas. He still has issues with places that echo, but otherwise is a very mellow, relaxed lap dog... who happens to be mostly border collie. (!@?!) He picked me.

Allie the dog was kinda dreamed in. I was having dreams about silver dogs (Wiemaraners?) I went to the H.S. looking for one, but to no avail. The same day, my best friend called me and said "Look! This shelter has a kinda silvery dog, but she's deaf!" So I went down there. Allie was 8 months old, dalmation/blue heeler mix, completely deaf. But her heart was so huge, and she was SO active and friendly that I fell for her immediately. I have been training dogs my whole life, and felt up to the challenge of taking on a deaf dog. She now has a vocabuluary of about 10 commands that she knows in ASL :) She's grown up alot, and has assimilated into the household quite well. She's a Velcro-Dog to me. I'm definately her pack alpha. We kinda picked each other :)