THE DAY WE MET
(A tale about my cat & I)

It was time to bring a new furry friend into my life. I was a little nervous about getting a cat, I had never had one before. But I began my search on the Internet for a cat that fit the pet guidelines at my apartment. After searching for days, I saw her. Her name was “Muffy.”

I got in my car and headed to the Humane Society. At first the woman helping me didn’t even know who Muffy was. She brought me to a room of kittens and said these were good choices. I was not interested; I wanted to find Muffy. She looked around some more and finally there she was!

The woman took her out and brought her into a visiting room where her & I could be alone. Muffy paid no attention to me. She just wandered around and was constantly looking up at the ceiling. The woman came in to ask how it was going. I said “she isn’t really paying any attention to me, she seems very shy.” She said I should visit with some other cats too. I was hesitant, but agreed. I visited with two more cats, one of them hissed at me, the other one was all over me. We went back in the area of the Humane Society where all of these cats were that I had been visiting with. While the woman was trying to talk me into another cat that was older, I couldn’t keep my eye off of Muffy. So, I told the woman I wanted to visit with Muffy one more time in the private room. Again, Muffy was looking up at the ceiling. Then all of a sudden…she stopped and looked at ME. And with that look was a “meow.” That was all it took! I looked back at her and said “OK, you’re coming home with me.”

Her name was instantly changed to “Cino.” I am not a “Muffy’ kind of person.

Here she is a few minutes after bringing her home. I let her out of the box in the bathroom because I wanted her to be by her litter box so she knew right away where it was. Little did know, behind the toilet in the bathroom would become her home for the next few days.

I brought her food & water in there. I talked to her and tried to let her know she was safe.

After the first few days, she was brave enough to venture out of the bathroom. I was sitting on the couch watching tv and I looked over and saw her peeking around the corner at me. When I got up, she ran back in the bathroom. Then one night, I was asleep and all of a sudden I felt a little wet nose on mine. She decided to “check me out” finally!

For the next few days, she worked up her courage to come around the corner from where she was peering into the living room. She looked at the tv and as she got closer to it, it startled her. She didn’t seem familiar with what it was and did not want to go near it. She was very hesitant about going to the screen door to look outside too. She sure was taking her time getting to know ALL of her new surroundings.

Even though she wasn’t hiding in the bathroom anymore, she was still very territorial of it for a while.  One day when my dad was over, he went to use the bathroom and, of course, closed the door behind him. Cino was not happy with this and spent the whole time standing up against the door meowing. When my dad came out he looked at her and said “I promise, I didn’t use the litter box.”

Here she is when she came to realize this was her home and that she was safe and loved!
(Looks pretty comfortable, doesn’t she?)

The next few weeks would turn out to be a pretty rough beginning for us. I had to take her to the veterinarian to catch up on some vaccinations and because she was sick. She needed to be given medication for the next 10 days (poor thing). Then I went to give the paperwork from the veterinarian to the apartment manager. She gave them back to me and said she needed to be declawed in the back. What?!

First of all, I worked really hard at getting a cat that fit all of the requirements. One of the requirements was declawed, to my understanding, in the front. Well, since I do not even agree with declawing in the first place, I intentionally picked out a little older cat that was already declawed (so I didn’t have to do it). And secondly, you don’t declaw a cat in the back. If they were to accidentally get outside, they would have no means of self-defense.

After getting a letter backing me up from a friend of mine who is a veterinarian, many phone calls to the apartment corporate office, and many tears, I was told I did not have to have her declawed in the back. (Fyi…I would have never done it, I would have moved)

So there’s the tale of how my cat, Cino and I met. It is now six years later and I couldn’t have asked for a better cat!

End note: I found out that she lived with three birds before, maybe this is why she was always looking up.

This post is part of Tuesday Tales. Visit my Tuesday Tales page to read more pet stories and to participate.