Tail Waggers' Blog

Our little kitten now needed a name that the both of our little ones needed to agree upon. Our daughter (11) just redecorated her room in a French theme, so she threw out “Paris”. Our son (6) stood there and thought about it for awhile and agreed that since the pair of them were getting her together “Pair of us” would be a great name! Even though we had different meanings, spellings, etc, we did have an agreement. Done! Paris she became.

Our daughter understanding the misunderstanding of the naming of the little female fur ball and graciously offered to her brother the honor of naming the little boy. She also determined in her bigger sister authority that the little boy kitten would belong to him anyway. Our son, not looking a gift cat in the mouth (if you will), proudly and quickly named him Thunder. No one knows why, not even our son, but Thunder it is now and forever!

Okay to celebrate Adopt a Shelter Cat Month, we as a family decided to adopt a cat from our local SPCA. Our cat of 17 years passed over the Rainbow Bridge a little over a year ago, so our family was ready for a new addition. Even our little puppies who grew up under her watch were ready for another tail chasing, nose thumping bundle of joy.

Let me tell you a little bit about our SPCA. They have a very nice facility, animals are well taken care of and staff is friendly and knowledgeable. Plus we have been there multiple times to check out the cats and dogs – window shopping, if you will. And to top it off, they recently opened a new building specifically designed for cats. The center has multiple indoor cages and the main room is surrounded by mini rooms (bedroom size) for cat families with have multiple windows into the main room and outside and the all important window sills for sun bathing. In addition, each room has multiple cat houses and some that resemble trees for climbing. The most impressive thing is that each room has a kitty door to an outside sitting and sun bathing patio (caged of course). It is the same size as the main room and cats and come and go as they please. Great for the cats and a great way to interact and get to know the little kitties.

So, we had previously decided that the kids would be the ones to pick our new friend. Our two little ones (6 and 11) ran around meeting every cat, pointing and shouting, “This one! No, this one!” over and over with exclamations of excitement, “how cuuutttee”, “what a sweetie”, “aaahhh”, and “who’s a pretty kitty”. The last one was our son in his sweetest littlest voice. My wife and I were trying to steer them to some nice older, calmer cats but all those attempts fell on deaf ears.

They finally decided on a cat, as you can image, it was a little 8-week old female, jet black and big green eyes. With the assistance of the volunteers we went to the meet and greet rooms where we all got to interact one on one with the little kitten. This is where she sealed the deal by playing with the little mouse, running and jumping with such exuberance that it amazed our little ones with more gasps and glee’s of joy – “this is the one. She is our new little kitten!”

Now, we just had to wait for her to be spayed, which would take four grueling days of waiting.

Later that night a discussion by the adults pursued and the reflection on the little kitten. The story of how she was found on the streets and brought into the shelter with her little brother, who by the way is her identical twin and in the same cage as her was a cry in itself for them not to be separated. The kids joined in on the conversation and the guilt was laid – we went the very next day to adopt her twin, as he has become to be known.