Well, anyone who knows me or sees our Facebook posts, knows I love animals. I’ve always had pets and can’t imagine not having one or more in our family. When I met my husband Paul, he had 3 male cats and I had 2 female. My cats came from the Humane Society and his came from being kind-hearted and keeping a “family” of cats together after a previous relationship (which is only one of the many reasons I fell in love with him). Over the past five years, we lost all three of his cats, but they were 16 and 17 years old, so they had long and (after I came in the picture – ha!) happy lives. We had to find a home for one of my females because she just couldn’t adjust to a new home and the other cats. Now we have one of my original cats, who made her debut in our first cooking show by prancing around on the counter behind my back, and three that we have adopted together from the Humane Society.
Smokey is our newest addition, who we adopted during the Waldo Canyon Fire last summer, when the Humane Society was giving away their cats to make room for all the evacuated pets.
Smokey and my son Tyler….she thought his back looked like a new mode of transportation!
Of course I believe I have the cutest cats in the world, but don’t we all think that about our pets? (Even when they’re naughty.) Our children are all grown and out of the house which I always thought meant I’d be able to decorate with breakables, new furniture that wouldn’t get dirty within 5 minutes, and our house would always look neat and tidy without toys and “stuff” scattered everywhere. But our cats have other ideas of what our house, which I believe they think is “theirs”, should look like, which includes cat toys everywhere, dusty paw prints on every glass surface, and of course the hair that no matter how often I vacuum, is floating around. Our “distressed” leather is REALLY distressed because three of our cats still have claws and no matter what kind of scratching post we get, they prefer the sofas. We have talked about getting them de-clawed, which would make a huge difference in what gets destroyed but because of the wildlife in our area, I keep thinking if they get out somehow, with claws, they’ll have a better chance of survival. Of course if the cats had a more stern mama, claws or no claws, they’d behave better. I’m sure when my son comes over to visit, he thinks, “Why do THEY get to do that?” Ha!
Our cat family is not without drama, laughs, spats, accidents and messes but we love them. They remind me more of dogs than cats because none of them have the “stand-offish” personality a lot of felines have. Instead, they jump in your laps, run to the door when they hear “papa’s” car pull in to the garage, and love to play and splash in the water bowls. They also all seem to have a bit of OCD, too. Smokey will stand in one area for hours, waiting for a shadow to chase. Buddy will (for some reason), lick the couch or wall for hours, while Harpo has a thing about moving water bowls across an entire room, of course spilling the water all over the floor and then there’s our oldest, Fergie, who likes to put all of her paws in water and splash until she and everything around her is soaked. The phrase I say the most everyday is , “Get off the counters!”
Within five minutes of moving the baker’s rack out of the kitchen, the cats claimed it for their amusement.
Most of my friends have pets they rescued and they too, can’t imagine their families being complete without their pets. Which led me to this post….
I would love to share stories and pictures of your rescue pet, whether it be a cat, dog, bird, hamster, horse, etc. I know there are lots of other great shelters out there too, I just happen to more familiar with The Humane Society. If you’d like us to feature a story about your pet, send your pet’s story and picture to me at tammy@719woman.com.
If you’re interested in adopting from The Humane Society in the Pikes Peak region, visit www.hsppr.org