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| Name: |
Alice
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Age: |
Eight years old
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| Gender: |
Female
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Kind: |
Cat
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| Home: |
Orlando, Florida, USA
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My
husband and I wanted to get my daughter a kitten for her birthday a
few years ago. We planned to go to our county's animal shelter to find
a cat, but my daughter, being five at the time, couldn't really get a
sense of what a shelter was. I was trying to explain it to her in the
car one day, when I realized we were only about a mile from the shelter,
so I decided to take her - just to show her - and give the resident cats
some love and affection.
While we were in the shelter giving skritches to the kitties, I noticed
one particularly solitary cat out on the patio. (The shelter is
wonderful, by the way, with large windows that open out onto an enclosed
patio, so the cats have a lot of room to roam around and sun
themselves.) I went to the window and called to the tiny little thing,
and she sauntered over, hopped through the window, and stretched like
she meant it. I sat down, and she immediately jumped into my lap, and
purred graciously while I scratched her.
Afterwards, I looked at the posted details about her, and found that
she'd been a resident since October, and it was April. She'd been there
for six months! Her estimated age was five years, although our vet
estimated seven. My daughter loved her as much as I did, and I promised
her we'd still look for a kitten as a companion. I paid the shelter
fees, bought a carrier, and called my husband afterwards. He loves her, too.
We named her Alice, because we were reading Alice in Wonderland at the
time, but she was almost called Twinkie because she has three little
white spots on her chest and tummy---evenly spaced, like the bottom of a
Twinkie. She is, by my husband's admission, the most devoted cat either
of us has ever known. She likes the whole family, but she is MY cat. She
knows when I'm brushing my teeth that it's time for bed, and she's
waiting there to tuck me in. When I lie down, she curls up on my tummy
and purrs for me until I fall asleep. She does her own thing during the
night, but she's back in my room (usually I'm on my side and she's
sitting on my hip) first thing in the morning. She naps in whatever room
I'm working in, and if I do yoga, she thinks I'm just finding new
positions from which to pet her.
Her companion, whom we found a few weeks later, is Dinah, which is the
name of Alice's cat in the story.
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