Thank you so much Lisa, not only for your sympathy but also for this wonderful note about your own history with cats. Amanda sounds VERY similar to our kitty Aliza. (If you scroll up to my blog menu, go to the far right and under ‘Life” there’s a sub-menu heading called “Cats” and there you can find some stories about Aliza. She was one of the most special cats we were so lucky to have, even though it was indeed quite a challenge with her not being socialized at all in the beginning. (We also kept her existing name!) Whenever we made any type of small progress with Aliza, my husband and I were just so happy…and so grateful that Aliza trusted us more and more over time.

Jasper of course reminded me of Lulu, just because I got Lulu at 8 weeks old, and of course she was the alpha. (And no, Otto won’t ever become the alpha…we call him our spoon, as in “not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he doesn’t need to be, so he’s our spoon!” There is something so meaningful about that long amount of time over so many years with a pet that words can fully describe. Jasper sounds like such a trooper with his insulin shots — such a good boy who knew you were helping him even if it wasn’t fun.

Each of your cats sound like they had such distinct personalities and most importantly still have such an imprint on your hearts.

By the way, when I adopted Aliza, a huge part of the reason is because nobody wanted her because she wasn’t socialized (even though they told me she was — she was super fearful when anyone looked at her at the shelter and stayed in the back of her cage) and also people thought her paws were weird because she had double paws, like. Hemingway cat. At the time, I wanted to give all the love possible to a cat who really needed it, so she fit the bill!

I could go on and on too about cats — anyone who thinks they are “just cats” has obviously never truly experienced what it’s like to be owned and loved by them. (Because…of course…they do think that they own us!) 🙂

Just the other day my husband Walter remarked that it’s so sad that our kitties and pups don’t live longer. We were a large cat family ourselves. Our dear sweet alpha boy was Jasper, an orange tabby. We adopted Jasper at 8 wks. from our local shelter. He lived until one week before his 19th birthday. His last 10 years he lived with feline diabetes. He was such a trooper; he always knew when he was going to get his insulin shots (twice daily), and would patiently sit at my feet while I’d prepare the syringe. A quick shot, and he’d know it was over. I always felt so sorry to have to do that, but he seemed to instinctively know we were trying to help him.

Soon came Rocky, a quiet runt-of-the-litter gray & white tabby who was rejected by his mom. Then came George, a starving gray tabby stray we found huddled up against our pile of recycling cardboard one 30 degree winter morning. Miss Tibby, another starving stray, showed up at our back door one morning, following me as I walked down the driveway to get the newspaper. Every morning she would wait for me, and would escort me down & back up the driveway. And finally, there was Gracie, who had perhaps the saddest story: the family whose house we had just bought just turned her out when they left. Poor thing, she hung around the neighborhood for nearly a year before we discovered her & found out from the neighbors who she was. She was pregnant, starving & partially feral.

All our cats lived to be senior citizens, & once we were alone again I couldn’t bear to adopt another cat. It took 3 years, but one day we went to the pound & I asked them to show us the cat who was Least Likely to be adopted. That was Amanda, who had been returned by not one, but two different families. She was in a sort of holding area by herself, not out in the general adoption population with the other cats. I felt very strongly that we needed to “pay it forward” after so many wonderful years with our 5, so we now have Amanda. (I wanted to change her name, but she was already confused enough!) She had become totally un-socialized (?) & was not a happy girl. She has been with us 6 1/2 yrs. now, & we have made many very small steps of progress with her. No holding, no carrying, no nail trimming, etc. But she now sleeps near me on the bed, keeping a good 2-3 foot distance between us, but still there. I take great comfort in seeing her make baby steps. She’ll never be like our others, but she is very much the Alpha Cat!

I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to go on and on…..
Thank you for sharing your Lulu and Otto stories…… =^..^=
Warm Regards,
Lisa

Thanks Suzanne. Yes, Lulu was stunning!