Kitty Cat Narrative

I wasn’t always the cat person that I have turned into now.  In my childhood, my brother and father were so allergic to cats, that if they even touched them, they would break out into a rash and immediately start sneezing.  Now as you can imagine we did not have any cats in or around our house, but I remember my best friend, when I was younger, had a black and white cat named Mittens.  She was the coolest cat I had ever seen, and I loved her. I loved the way she looked, and she was the softest animal I had ever touched.  I think a big part of my early obsession was based around the fact that you want what you can’t have.  Never-the-less, my love for these feline friends grew.

            Fast forward ten years and I am now in high school, and now volunteer at the local animal hospital where I lived.  I loved playing with all the animals of course, but my favorite part was feeding and socializing the cats.  Don’t get me wrong the dogs were fun too, but they were so loud and hyper and they involved lots of walks and running, not my thing.  The cats, on the other hand, just wanted to lie in my lap, eat treats, and play with any sort of feather on a stick.  I loved spending every other night with them and I knew then and there I was going to get a cat as soon as I was physically able.

            A few years later, once in college and out of the dorms, I was finally on my own, and I knew it would only be a mater of time before I was the proud owner of my own kitty cat.  My roommate and I moved into an apartment that we knew would let us have pets, and before we even had a couch in our apartment we had gotten a little grey kitten off of craigslist.  I was so happy I could barely contain myself.  I got every little collar and kitten toy that was available at the pet store.  We named her Alice and she was the best little kitten you could have asked for.

            After a week or two of living with us our beautiful little Alice started acting very different then she had been earlier.  She stopped eating and we noticed that her eyes seemed dull.  Being that she was so small we took her in right away to see what was wrong with her.  After several test we found that our little kitten had toxoplasmosis, which is a disease that affects the lungs, liver, and nervous system.  It seems that the Alice’s mother, and farm cat, had probably hunted and eaten something with the disease while pregnant and transferred the diseases to the kittens.  We tried putting her on some of the antibiotics to help her fight it, but she was to small and young to fight it off.  Two days later I lost my beautiful little kitten.

            Losing that kitten was really hard on me, as I’m sure it would be for most people.  I picked it out myself and had it just long enough to fall head over heels in love with it.  My roommate, who was not nearly effected as me, adopted herself another kitten a few months later and encouraged me to do the same.  I thought long and hard about it, but I still wasn’t ready just yet.  I knew I would eventually want another little guy, but it just wasn’t the time yet.  A few days later she adopted a little bundle of piss and vinegar that was just so cute and naughty that you couldn’t help but lover her.  I was glad she got her kitten and she made us both happier.  It was nice to her the pitter of little paws around the house again, and little did I know she would help me find the cat of my dreams.

            Most people will agree that people in some way shape or form are like the pets that they have.  Some people look a little like them, or maybe it’s just an attitude that owner and pet share, but we all love and relate to our pets in some way.  This was the case when I found my Optimus Prime, I know it’s a weird name but that’s for another blog post.  We took little Memow in for her six month visit to the vet, and while she was getting worked on we wandered through the adoption section of the human society to look at the cats.  The person with the cats let us play with a couple while she had them out and I was instantly drawn to a beautiful white and black cat.  He was nicest guy in the world, but wasn’t afraid to get what he wanted, whether it was a treat or a toy he found a way to get it.  When they were wrapping up and putting some of the cats away I noticed they put him in a cage with a red dot on it.  Curious, I asked what the dot was for, and they told me that it unfortunately meant that he had been there to long and was scheduled for euthanasia.  I simply walked over took the dot off his cage and said no he’s not he is mine.

            Most people when I tell them this story give me an “awe” or a “good for you,” but I’m not the only hero.  Yes, I did save the cats life, but I’m sure as most people with pets agree that they also save your life.  He has been there for me through stress, loss, and hard times.  It is hard to ignore the unconditional love of a pet, I always get a little sad when I think of my first little kitten, but as they say everything happens for a reason.  I am so thankful for the little guy that I have, and wouldn’t change it for anything.