The Crazy Cat Family

You know...THAT family......yeah, that's us. I'm not sure how it really even came about, but we are those people now. We talked about getting a pet, as someone who grew up with animals I really felt like my girls were missing out on the joy that they bring you. The Boy never had any animals growing up due to an allergy his mom has, but I knew if I could just convince him that he would fall in love with some kind of something that was cuddly and had fur. We'd tried fish before and he hated them, and their tank.

Finally we settled on the fact that we don't really enjoy picking up huge piles of poo, and since I'm not really a fan of little dogs that eliminated that. Fine, a cat it is! We eagerly looked up cats online, trying to find one we could all agree on. After a few days we found a set of brothers that were looking for a family. We called and we're told that we could be placed on  a list of potential adopters  and we would be the second family to view. The first family took them both. We were pretty sad since we had let ourselves become pretty attached to those little guys even without holding them in real life.

The following weekend the local SPCA held an adoption event, and The Boy and I went over to see if we found anyone that seemed like they'd fit in. We were pretty sure we wanted a male cat, color didn't much matter, but he had to be friendly, playful and able to deal with the kids. There were SO many cats there! We wandered around cages, and tables full of crates of kittens. We found a few that we liked, and we held and played with all different ages.

After walking around for a while The Boy looks at me and asks "Do you see any that you like?" My response "I want them ALL!" ((perhaps I'm just the crazy cat lady?)) Of course, like he usually does, The Boy reigned me in with his logic and such, reminding me that we came for a SINGLE cat, not a house full. We wandered around again, and came upon our first little guy. Grey stripes and literally climbing the cage door to play with us, Gambit won us over right away. At only three months old he was so playful, and wanted to run and swat at everything. We filled out his adoption paperwork, and made arrangements to pick him up after his surgery the next day. In our county you're required to neuter/spay any adopted animals.

We left there feeling so happy, but as we drove away we both began to feel like it wouldn't be fair to bring home one lonely cat. It wasn't likely that he would be alone often, but what about when he was. Would he be sad? Cry? We decided that we wanted another. We went over to PetsMart, as they were having an adoption event there as well. We looked through the handful of cages there, but I couldn't get the little orange tabby out of my mind. I told him I wanted to go back and see if he was still available.

We returned to the SPCA, but sadly my little orange tabby had just been adopted by another family. I was heartbroken, but we continued to look around. When I seen Jupiter I knew it was meant to be. He & Gambit are from the same litter, and they are so happy together. The woman at the SPCA was thrilled to see that we were back to adopt another cat, and she happily helped us fill out another adoption packet.

A few years later, there was a cat who had been abandoned at the church that the girls took classes at a few times a week. We'd seen him there for a while, and of course the kids at school all loved him, but finally the church said he had to go. Apparently the preschool's sandbox had started attracting a ton of attention from the neighborhood cats since he was there. The kids all called him Cheetos, since he seemed to have a fond appreciation for lunch box chips. We talked Daddy into letting him come live with us, but he said we couldn't call him Cheetos. In the end we settled on Jaxon Moses. He rode on the dashboard of the truck on the way home, and has declared Nanners as his personal favorite since then.

Most recently we adopted Penny, our only female. She's a purebred Bengal cat, and she's all sass. Incredibly vocal, and rather much for the boys to deal with they avoid her at all costs. Except when she gets her food. Penny is a little underweight, so she gets wet food mixed into her kitten food and Gambit can't resist.

In addition to our 4 inside, we have Scrappy the one eyed tom who has been coming around for years; Squish the grey and white scaredy cat; Chunk a fluffy, solid black line backer of a tom; Stash a good sized black and white tuxedo tom who is afraid of his own shadow; Mama the one who brought Squish; Stash, Chunk & Seaba here, and last but not least Seaba, the family baby. Seaba is from the last litter Mama had and she is crazy for attention. She'll actually stand at the back door and scratch trying to get someone to come out and play.

The 6 porch cats came here on their own.Scrappy started coming around about a year after we moved here, and is the most loving feral I've ever seen. Mama cat showed up one day, and we fed her since she was pregnant, I just couldn't starve her. Next thing we know, she's not pregnant anymore, and we can't find the babies. About six weeks later Chunk, Squish, Stash and one other kitten show up with her. The unnamed kitten left, but the others all stayed around. The goal this spring is to get Mama cat fixed. The problem is that she's really aggressive, and extremely feral. No matter what Mom and I have decided that she's getting snipped this spring, even if it means taking some scratches in the process.

Somehow we ended up being the crazy cat family, and it's too late to turn back now. Poor Daddy........