Cat Story

While getting our hardwood floors we were told by the installers that we had to be out of the house for a few days while the polyurethane dried because of the fumes. We decide to stay by my in-laws which worked out pretty well. We had two cats up until two weeks ago and that’s where my story begins.

When Robin and I were married she won in the pet department. She came from a cat lover family and I come from a dog lover family. Early on we lived in a one bedroom apartment which I still miss to this day, so if we were going to have a pet I guess cats were probably the logical choice. Over time I grew to enjoy them and they became apart of our family. We started with one, but we noticed that Tiger was becoming extremely overweight, even with diet cat food. So I decided to adopt a friend for him so that they can chase and play with each other. The running around together should have helped Tiger lose the weight right? NOPE, he just kept on getting fatter. Anyway, tiger was apart of our family for 9 years and Mocha for 5. Did I forget to mention that we discovered that I’m allergic to cats?

We gave the cats to my mother while the floors were being done and after about 5 days Robin and I decided that now would be a good time to give them away. My mother is a widow and lives alone so we thought the cats would be good company for her. Even though she likes the cats, she refused to keep them. The kids only asked about the cats a couple of times so we thought that they may soon forget about them. My mission was to look for a no kill shelter. I found some but they wouldn’t take them because they were filled to capacity with cats and my little fellows were too old. I finally settled on a shelter that would take them and put them up for adoption if they didn’t have any behavior issues. This shelter was also an open door shelter which meant that if they ran out of room they would start euthanizing. Anyway, giving the cats over may have been one of the hardest things that I have ever done. The shelter told me that I could check their website to see if the cats got adopted or not. I just couldn’t bring myself to check up on them, it would have been too painful.

So I left them at the shelter.

Later that day I called my mother to tell her that I took the cats to the shelter. She was shocked that I actually did it. I told her that I was going to do it, but she didn’t believe me. She got all upset and decided that she wanted Tiger. I went on line a couple of days later because it was the weekend and I couldn’t get to the shelter until Monday. I noticed that Mocha was up for adoption, but not tiger. I then thought that Tiger was already adopted. I was mistaken. I called up the shelter a dozen times until I got to speak to an actual human. They told me that Tiger was having some behavior issues and that he was not suitable for adoption. That struck me as odd because he is the calmest gentlest cat on the planet. I told them that I would come pick him up today. They asked me if I wanted Mocha too; I said no because he was up for adoption, the website said so. Well, they said that he started to have behavior issues as well and they had to pull him from adoption. I called my mother to explain the situation and she was hesitant at first but committed to taking them both. I went to the shelter and the place charged me $100 to get my cats back. I gave them a donation when I dropped the cats off, plus I gave them the Kitty crates, and now they are charging me $100 for room and board….whatever.

(The whole reason both cats were having issues was because they were separated from each other. Once they put them in the same cage they were fine.)

I took both Mocha and Tiger to my Mothers where they will live happily ever after.

Oh by the way, the day that I dropped the cats off at the shelter my oldest asked where the cats were. I used the same story that my parents told me when my dogs had to be put down because of illness, but I tweaked it a bit. I told her that I received a phone call from a farmer who needed Mocha and Tiger to help him with his mice problem. She was visibly upset but didn't cry. She asked a million questions and I answered them. I thought I dodged a bullet until 20 minutes later when she broke down and cried for an hour. It was a really tough evening.

When I broke the news to her about grandma adopting the cats she was excited and overwhelmed with joy by the thought of seeing her pets again. She wanted to know why they weren’t on the farm catching mice, so I told her the farmer called me back to tell me that the cats did an incredible job and that he didn’t need them anymore. To her the cats were heros, but the real hero is grandma. Maybe when she gets older I'll tell her the real story.

She knew that I was allergic to the cats and understood why they couldn’t live with us.

Mocha was a little freaked when I picked him and Tiger up from the shelter. I’M STILL TRYING TO GET THE URINE SMELL OUT OF MY CAR………ANY SUGGESTIONS?