Georgia
I suppose it's time I announced it.
Spring is here, and in the air is the desire to exercise the parental instinct. Thus, Sean and I are the proud parents of a rescued cat named Georgia.
She's absolutely adorable! She's a three-year-old dilute tortoise-shell with a dynamic personality. The poor thing had been at the rescue home for over a year, and since she's had this name for as long, we didn't want to confuse her by changing it. Although the volunteers and caretakers there give the cats the utmost care, it's still not quite home for the kitties. Georgia didn't get along well with any of the other cats there, and spent the vast majority of her time perched atop the fish tank, face in the corner where she could ignore everyone. Jon likened it to being in a jail cell.
One fateful day, I convinced Sean to come to the home with me to pick out a kitten. He was adamantly a non-cat person, and said that if I HAD to get a cat, I could only get a kitten. He said he didn't care for cats much once they became adults anyway. Well, after I dragged his reluctant ass to the shelter to visit the animals, he had a sudden change of heart. He walked into the first room where there were a multitude of adult cats that had been there quite a while. He noticed Georgia sitting on the fish tank and approached her cautiously. As he started petting her, she stretched out toward him so much that she almost fell off the tank; she was practically climbing onto his shoulder. That was it - Sean was in love.
A week or so later we finally got everything worked out so that Georgia could come home with us. The ladies at the shelter were reluctant to let her go, because for all intents and purposes they had bonded with her as THEIR cat. At one point, before I really got to understand how they felt, I thought, "Jeez, do you want to adopt the cat out or not?!" But they're sensible people and understood that a permanent home was far better for Georgia than her isolation on the fish tank (cute as it was). [bah - she just jumped up on my narrow desk and is sitting in front of half of my monitor right now! >_< She's just too cute.]
We watched through the glass door as the ladies all gathered around to bid farewell before or after they put her into the carrier (we couldn't see or hear because they formed a circle around her, like a group hug.) I started tearing up a little bit.
Long story short, Georgia seems very happy to have her own home and her own humans to get attention from. She seems so much younger now than she did on the fish tank when we first met her, and she's very playful and loving when she feels like it (as most cats are, I suppose). They always say that the cats will behave differently as soon as you get them home, and Georgia's personality seems to have turned out for the best. This is the first cat I've ever had that opens doors! If she needs to pull it open, she'll easily use her paw like a hand, and when she needs to push it open, she jumps up to push it with her forepaws. Her use of those limbs makes it easy to believe she's been human in a former life or two. Though still a bit skittish, she's gradually getting warmer and friendlier with everyone. Today she let me pick her up for the first time.
We're very happy to have her home and hope she has a long, happy and healthy life with us.
--
Spring is here, and in the air is the desire to exercise the parental instinct. Thus, Sean and I are the proud parents of a rescued cat named Georgia.
She's absolutely adorable! She's a three-year-old dilute tortoise-shell with a dynamic personality. The poor thing had been at the rescue home for over a year, and since she's had this name for as long, we didn't want to confuse her by changing it. Although the volunteers and caretakers there give the cats the utmost care, it's still not quite home for the kitties. Georgia didn't get along well with any of the other cats there, and spent the vast majority of her time perched atop the fish tank, face in the corner where she could ignore everyone. Jon likened it to being in a jail cell.
One fateful day, I convinced Sean to come to the home with me to pick out a kitten. He was adamantly a non-cat person, and said that if I HAD to get a cat, I could only get a kitten. He said he didn't care for cats much once they became adults anyway. Well, after I dragged his reluctant ass to the shelter to visit the animals, he had a sudden change of heart. He walked into the first room where there were a multitude of adult cats that had been there quite a while. He noticed Georgia sitting on the fish tank and approached her cautiously. As he started petting her, she stretched out toward him so much that she almost fell off the tank; she was practically climbing onto his shoulder. That was it - Sean was in love.
A week or so later we finally got everything worked out so that Georgia could come home with us. The ladies at the shelter were reluctant to let her go, because for all intents and purposes they had bonded with her as THEIR cat. At one point, before I really got to understand how they felt, I thought, "Jeez, do you want to adopt the cat out or not?!" But they're sensible people and understood that a permanent home was far better for Georgia than her isolation on the fish tank (cute as it was). [bah - she just jumped up on my narrow desk and is sitting in front of half of my monitor right now! >_< She's just too cute.]
We watched through the glass door as the ladies all gathered around to bid farewell before or after they put her into the carrier (we couldn't see or hear because they formed a circle around her, like a group hug.) I started tearing up a little bit.
Long story short, Georgia seems very happy to have her own home and her own humans to get attention from. She seems so much younger now than she did on the fish tank when we first met her, and she's very playful and loving when she feels like it (as most cats are, I suppose). They always say that the cats will behave differently as soon as you get them home, and Georgia's personality seems to have turned out for the best. This is the first cat I've ever had that opens doors! If she needs to pull it open, she'll easily use her paw like a hand, and when she needs to push it open, she jumps up to push it with her forepaws. Her use of those limbs makes it easy to believe she's been human in a former life or two. Though still a bit skittish, she's gradually getting warmer and friendlier with everyone. Today she let me pick her up for the first time.
We're very happy to have her home and hope she has a long, happy and healthy life with us.
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