My lifelong love affair with cats

My lifelong love affair with cats began when I was very young and living in the country with my grandparents...On the farm they always had cats around to keep the mice down in the barn and out of the livestock feed. I have had many in my life and most of them have been long lived. There was Teddy, the half persian white cat that lived to age 17, then came MeNoo, the siamese who also lived to be 17 years old. Presently we own Kelly, a large (16 pounds) Russian Blue that we got quite by accident. Aubrey and I were browsing around the animal shelter (actually, I fooled him into going as he had said "NO MORE CATS", but we saw this beautiful gentleman who seemed so aloof and immediately I knew I had to have him. Aubrey talked me into going on to the shopping center and when we sat down to rest, I told him I really wanted that cat and he said cats were too much trouble and I told him if that was what you based it on, no one would ever have children. He thought this over a minute and said
"Come on, Sugar, we are going to get that cat!"

When we got back to the shelter and asked to see the cat, we were told she was an 8 month old that had just been brought in by her former owners that had to move out of town suddenly. I asked to be allowed to hold the cat and try to make friends with "her". When I picked her up I got a surprise....I told Aubrey it was either a male or in bad shape...he came to look and went out and confronted the people with
"What do you mean saying this is a female---you could see the evidence that it is a male from across my pond."
And this is how we became the proud owners of Kelly, who shares our lives with our dog Happy, a 17 year old schnauzer that we inherited when his owner died and the people in charge wanted to put him to sleep. Both animals have been a joy.
Kelly is a little rambunctious and when we first got him, no one had told him you don't show love by biting. We had quite a few discussions about that before the fly swatter and I convinced him it really wasn't the thing to do. He still gets overjoyed at times and reverts to his old habits and I sometimes wonder if his former owners really left town or if they got tired of being bitten.
He and Happy share the same food bowl and have been caught sleeping with one's head on the other's body. Kelly terrifies the dog by playing with him and jumping over him.

Click here to read Kelly's story

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