***My post for the letter C is late because my browser kept crashing last night so I gave up :-)***

I love my dogs, but if I’m being honest, I’m a cat person. Not sure why I’ve always been drawn to cats, but I loved them for as long as I can remember. I have been fortunate enough to be a “mom” to 6 cats in my life. I got my first cat when I was a little girl. He was a beautiful gray kitten with white paws that I named James. I didn’t have him long, though, because he died in a freak accident at home while I was at school. I won’t share what happened because it’s a pretty upsetting story, even more so if you’re an animal/cat person.

My next cat came a few years later. Her name was Pussywillow. I wanted to name her Pussypaws, but my parents in their infinite wisdom managed to talk me out of that name! My mom suggested Pussywillow instead, knowing that I loved pussywillows. I had Pussywillow for 16 years. She loved chicken and would literally come snatch it right out of your mouth when you were eating it. She loved to watch birds. But she would get so nervous doing that, she would lose fur on her back. She actually often had a bald spot from her nerves from watching birds! I had her for 16 years. She got very sick near the end of her life and I had to have her put down. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I cried like I lost a member of my family; I know now that I did. My pets are like family to me.

Another cat I had was Monster Monster. He was huge and he lived up to his name! I found him on the side of a highway exit ramp as a kitten. I can only assume some horrible human dumped a box of kittens there since there was a box not far from where I found Monster. He could leap from the floor to the top of the fridge, and he loved to lie on top of the fridge and swat your head as you walked by. He would go outside and play like a dog, and the only way to get him back in the house was to bring the electric can opener outside so he could hear it. He would come running, thinking he was getting fed. But Monster Monster’s fatal flaw was confusion about where to pee. Since he kept using the dining room, he ended up having to go live on a farm where I am sure he enjoyed all sorts of shenanigans with the other barn cats and animals.

Then there was Scooter. My brother found him in a car wash where he worked one summer and brought him home. He was a handsome orange cat and we lived blissfully with him until my daughter Becky was born. The he wasn’t so happy that he wasn’t the baby anymore and starting peeing in my apartment. He went to go live with my parents in Ohio then.

When Becky was a toddler, we adopted 2 barn kittens from a friend. They were beautiful calicos and we named them Misty and Shasta. Misty was my cat. She loved me and that was about it! Shasta had ear mites so badly when she was a kitten that it damaged her hearing so she was deaf for all intents and purposes. But that cat loved Becky. She would let Becky do anything with her. Becky carried that cat like a rag doll around the house and pushed her around in a doll stroller — one time even right down the stairs! That cat didn’t care, she loved Becky that much. Becky used to blame Shasta for the naughty things she did, like when she wrote on the walls with black crayon! Both those cats lived a very long life, but the both eventually had to be put down. Misty developed a tumor in her sinuses so she couldn’t breathe properly. Shasta had kidney failure and wouldn’t eat or even really walk around.

I don’t have any cats now, just my 2 dogs. But my daughter recently adopted a kitten named Fergus, so he is my grandkitty! He is amazingly playful, and he loves Becky the way Shasta did. My mom also has a 16 pound black cat named Dude who is the most adorable troublemaker ever! I will make friends with cats where ever I go. As much as I love my dogs, my heart will always be with cats!