Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat

Halp! Take me home!

Yesterday evening, Mark and I visited the Capital Area Humane Society http://www.cahs-pets.org/index.htm to see about adopting a new family member.

We had a cat that had come to live with my family as a stray when I was a senior in high school. When she found us, she was very underweight and attention starved. We took her to the vet to get checked out, got all her shots, and then kept her at our house against my Dad's better judgement. When I moved out about a year later, I took her with me for company. I met Mark shortly there after and he also grew to love Daisy, begrudgingly, but he did.

Early this year, we had to put Daisy to sleep because she got very sick, very quickly. She got a tumor and there was no way to treat it, and she did not have any quality of life left, so it was time for her to go. We were both very sad, but now that a few months have passed, I really miss having a cat around.

Of course we have a dog (Belle, a mixed breed Shelter puppy, who will be 2 years old in a few weeks) who thinks she's the baby of the house, which she is. And, she loves to cuddle even though she weighs around 50 pounds and is about the same size as me, and of course she loves to suck up every ounce of our attention, and of course the house wouldn't be the same without her, but I miss the presence of a cat also. They are very different in personality than a dog and I love their gentleness, independence, and the way that they just love to curl up with you or greet you with the cutest little "meow!". It's time for us to get a new kitty!

When I first brought up the idea to Mark, he of course tried to put me off as long as possible. He kept saying, "Wait til after the wedding. We have enough going on right now.", which was a very vaild point, so I put it off, but kept talking about it. Well, now it's 'after the wedding', so I'm ready.

He wasn't quite so into the idea to begin with, but after a little gentle nudging from me, he very suddenly warmed up to the idea - it may have been the fact that my nudging consisted of my giving a speech about the importance of giving love to a cat looking for their forever home, accompanied with pictures of local shelter cats, but regardless, he suddenly decided that we could check out the cats and see if any of them wanted to come live with us.

It's so sad there! All of the cats want to go home with you, some sit there and meow, some are sleeping, it's like they are in jail. When you walk by the cages (especially in the room that has the babies!) the cats stick their little paws out through the bars and try to get your attention. It makes me want to take home each and every one of them! Of course, then I'd be known as the cat lady and no one would want to be friends with me because I'm always surrounded by hundreds of cats, so I don't think I'll be going that route.

In my opinion, it's very hard to decide between the cats. They are all adorable, and in my experience at least, it's much harder to get an understanding of a cat's personality than a dog's, which means that it's very hard for me to decide who will be the best fit for our household and our crazy dog with tons of energy to spare. All of the cats there are hungry for love and attention!

Anyway, we ended up finding a few that we liked, we didn't end up adopting anyone yesterday because we wanted a chance to think about it. We are supposed to go back this evening to make our final decision and hopefully Belle will approve when she meets her.