Chula Gets Chosen

From Susan’s Best Friends Network Blog, The Cat Garden.

Up early to get ready for visitors. Two people came, interested in adopting, and one wants Chula! I’ll be so pleased if Chula finds a home. He’s a wonderful adult cat, absolutely loves snuggling, and beautiful, too. He just showed up outside our house about 3 years ago. We assumed he’d wandered too far from home, and left him outside, thinking he’d go back eventually. He never left, and after a couple of weeks of him living outside the shelter, we decided to have him neutered and take him in. About a year later, he got outside and disappeared. We looked everywhere in the neighborhood, but couldn’t find any sign of him, but wondered if he’d been taken in, charmer that he is. Strangely, I had a dream that he was in a cage, in a room with lots of cages and other cats. We generally don’t call animal control when a cat goes missing, because they don’t pick up cats, only allowing cats to be surrendered by owners (though they will take abandoned kittens from anyone). But I decided I should call and rule it out, and sure enough, they had Chula. They said that the owner had brought him in, not wanting him anymore. I was able to describe him, including a circular patch on his back leg from an old injury, and they finally decided to let us pick him up. What we think probably happened is that he found his way back home, and his previous owner no longer wanted him. We were so glad he hadn’t been destroyed, but he came back very traumatized. He’d only been there for several days, but it took him months to get back to his old relaxed self. The whole experience taught us to always check immediately with animal control when a cat goes missing. I’ll really miss having him in the veranda enclosure, but he deserves a good home, at last. The Maggie-less kittens are adjusting well. They are eating and playing and enjoying their new soft blanket! We generally use pet sheets on the beds, since clean up is easier and more thorough, that way. But sick cats and small kittens sometimes need the extra comfort. We filled a 1.5 liter plastic cola bottle with very warm water and wrapped it in another blanket, to replace mom, and there’s been only a little complaining from them. Our other visitor today is interested in adopting Basil, the gray striped one, though she was concered that he wasn’t very friendly. We’ll try to work with all of them over the next week or so, and hopefully they will start showing more interest in human contact.