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December 17, 2007

Catblogging - Boots Episode 1: The Choosing

Adopting a cat is not quite so simple as it was in the days when Bruce's wife grabbed me out of a cardboard box and drove me to my new home. These days the preferred method is to go to a no-kill shelter. The no-kill shelters are much more expensive and complicated than the people with cardboard boxes, but if you're a die hard cat lover like The Girl, the shelter's need for support trumps the convenience factor.

The goal was to find a cat that liked cuddling. As you know, I absolutely insist that I always be ready to kill things at a moment's notice, and this makes cuddling simply impossible. This was not a problem with Bruce and The Gremlin, but when The Girl needs affection she does not back off at anything short of a full-blown hiss. This strength of will is useful when she's trying to calm a crazed toddler in the church nursery, but it's less than ideal when I'm seeking a little privacy.

So, Bruce, Maggie, and The Girl went to their friendly neighborhood pet shelter. Bruce had just gotten out of the shower, so all the cats were absolutely bonkers about him. (I should probably explain about the shower thing. Bruce uses Neutrogena T-Gel shampoo, which is irresistible to cats. Be careful about trying the stuff: the first time he used it I lost control and tried to eat his thumb.) The one cat that didn't like Bruce was a shy female named Cookie. Bruce immediately decided that here was a cat who just needed someone to love her and asked The Girl if he could keep her. Bruce thinks you can solve almost anything by just loving people. In this respect, he's kind of like Jimmy Carter, except he's smart enough to realize that the principle doesn't apply to mass-murdering dictators. Anyway, The Girl rightfully pointed out that Cookie was probably better off in a single-cat household, so Bruce was overruled.

In addition to the main room with caged dogs and kittens, there was a back room for free-roaming cats. Maggie and The Girl spent a little time in there, and a whole bunch of cats tried to climb on Maggie's head, which is how we found out that Maggie has been using Bruce's shampoo.

Eventually, Maggie and The Girl settled on Boots, a playful young male who likes being held. Normally, it would have been very difficult to choose only one cat, but the shelter solves this problem by charging a hefty fee for the adoption, and The Girl is very much aware of what the family can afford given recent increases in the price of gasoline and cheese.

This does not mean we now have a new cat living with us. Choosing a cat is only the first step in a long process. Tomorrow, Barb will be visiting the shelter to meet Boots, and in the meantime Bruce is filling out paperwork. The Pet Rescue Shelter is very careful about where they place a cat, so the paperwork is serious, but they were impressed by The Girl's extensive knowledge about cat care and psychology. (What can I say? She is, after all, The Girl.) There is also a protracted process required to insure Boots and I can be friends. The last cat we adopted (the Interloper), has never really overcome her initial hostility toward me.

So, it has begun. I'm hoping at the end of this that I'll have a new friend to whom I can pass on some of my accumulated wisdom, but if that doesn't happen, at least the Interloper will have some other target for her radical brand of feminism when she returns from North Dakota next year. That's a good thing.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

# At Mon 4:10 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More Catblogging | Tags: Boots cats family humor love Maggie Pet Rescue The Girl The Interloper

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Comments

Posted by: Michael at December 22, 2007 2:54 AM