For Valentine’s Day this year, Greg bought me a variety pack of Lindt chocolates (yum!) and a pet carrier! When I first opened it, I thought maybe it was a tent for us to go backpacking. “Is it a tent? A small tent? Oh, it’s a pet carrier! …For what?” He told me we’re going to get a kitty! We have wanted one for a while; it feels empty in our house without a cat because we are used to having them at our parents’ houses. Our old apartment didn’t allow pets, but this one does. After 7 months of living here, it was time for a pet!
We started doing research on local shelters and checking out cats that interested us on Petfinder.com. We didn’t have an age preference: a kitten or an adult would be fine. For appearance, I found I was more drawn to cats that were similar in color to cats I’ve had previously, like grey tiger and black cats, but pretty much every cat we saw online I would have taken! The only preference we had (aside from the fact that it was healthy, well behaved/had a good personality, and was fairly local) was that we wanted a male cat because in our experience with our pets they tend to be more friendly and snuggly.
We noticed that we were drawn to several listings that contained two cats, either siblings or a pair that bonded in the shelter: two black “panthers”, a kitten and an adult who became friends while waiting to be adopted, and a black cat who was friends with a grey tiger cat that looked a lot like my deceased cat Miles. A listing for two black and white cats called Reese and Gravy caught Greg’s eye and we sent in an online application to the shelter.
On Saturday, February 20th, we went out to look at some of the cats we saw online. We first stopped at a PetSmart to see if they had any available and also to get some essentials in case we came home with a cat that day. They only had two there and there weren’t any associates nearby to ask for help, so we bought a litter box and litter genie and headed to an animal shelter. We got to interact with a cat there, but we didn’t feel it was a perfect fit.
We came home and got a call from the woman who worked with the shelter that had Reese and Gravy. She said the cats were staying at her house and we could come meet them at 6:30. When we got to her house we could see some other cats she was caring for in nice cages, and she brought us to the bathroom where Reese and Gravy were living. I sat on the toilet lid and Greg sat on a plastic milk crate and the lady stood by the shower.
Reese was very friendly and came right out to get attention. He was playing with the zipper on my boots while the woman was telling us about how they came into her care. They came from different situations – one was feral and the other was not – but they looked almost identical except for the white marks on their cheeks. Reese has a white mark on the left side of his face and Gravy has a white mark on his right. Gravy also has larger than average paws. Other than those physical differences, and the fact that Gravy was smaller because he is 5 months old and Reese is 7 months old, they looked and acted as if they were brothers.
Gravy hid under their mini bunk bed setup for most of our visit because, as a feral kitten, he is wary of strangers. We pulled him out of hiding to say hi but he slunk behind the toilet when we put him down. Overall, they sounded very well-behaved and we loved that they were already friends. We liked that they ate their food in a grazing style, which is how my parents’ cats eat and it’s so much easier than having to remember to put food out at certain times. They eat when they are hungry and don’t scarf down their food at feeding time. She had taken very good care of them and we could already imagine them running around our house and cuddling with us on the couch.
We left without making a decision. We knew that these kittens would be a good fit for us and there weren’t any “cons” on the list. My only hesitation was that I wanted to see the grey tiger cat from another shelter. The one that looked like Miles. On Sunday we decided to call them and ask if they got our application and try to make an appointment that day. No matter what we wanted to make a decision by the end of the day so we didn’t risk losing Reese and Gravy. I called their office (after working up to it for about 10 minutes) and listened to a message that said they were closed on Sundays. That settled it. We would stop our search and go with Reese and Gravy. It was hard for me to put the other cat out of my mind, but I knew that adopting the two kittens wasn’t the wrong decision.
We called the woman and decided we would pick them up on Friday after she gave them a final bath. We went to PetSmart and picked out some toys we thought they might like: a carrot, a turtle, a squeaky mouse, a bag of little mice and balls, and an ugly worm/caterpillar that shook when you pulled its tail. We also bought ceramic food and water bowls and some litter (which we had to later exchange for the clumping kind… who knew there were so many choices? And what’s the difference between “extreme” litter and “triple action”?? No one knows).
We also had lots of fun coming up with their names! On the way to meet them the first time I noticed we were driving on a road called Gallivan and I saw a store called Finnegan’s. I joked that those would be cool names and we actually really liked the idea of Finnegan and also calling him Finn. We thought of some neat “buddy” names: Finn and Poe (Star Wars characters), Bird and Dog (to confuse the veterinarian’s office, “wait a minute, these are cats!”), To-may-to and To-mah-to but spelling them both like Tomato. I mentioned the name Felix because it’s the name of one of my favorite YouTubers, Pewdiepie (Felix Kjellberg). He plays video games and he’s really energetic and makes us laugh when we watch his videos. After suggesting it, I realized that Felix is the name of an old cartoon cat who is black and white! It was perfect! I don’t know much about the cartoon, but I remembered what he looked like and that he had a yellow bag. We decided to name the outgoing kitten (Reese) Felix because of how crazy Pewdiepie is and chose Finnegan for Gravy.
Finally it was Friday! We put the pet carrier in the car and were on our way. She cleaned them up a little bit and went over their paper work with us before we finally got them in the car. I sat the carrier on my lap to help stabilize them while we drove. There we a few meows (we aren’t sure which one was making noise because it was dark) and they shuffled around a bit but eventually settled down.
We brought them into our bathroom where we had their litter box and food. We made a bed for them out of a box and an old towel. Finn stayed in the pet carrier for a while because he wanted to be protected. We wanted to give their bed some covering so Greg got a blanket and my tripod: a tent! Finn liked hiding in there and Felix snuggled up next to him. They liked all of the toys we picked out (success!) and we saw Felix eat a few kibbles. After a while it was time for bed, and they stayed the night in the bathroom.
The next morning I woke up around 6:30 because someone was playing with the squeaky mouse and banging against the bathroom door! I didn’t mind – I wanted to play with them anyway! We spent the day hanging around with them in the bathroom and becoming acquainted. Felix LOVES attention and Finn is really good at playing but it takes him a while to come out and get started. By the end of the day we let Felix come out and look around the bedroom/closet/office. He loved exploring the rooms and walking around on the carpet. I carried Finn out of hiding to have him just look at the room (I didn’t put him down because we knew he’d dive to hide under the bed) and then we put them away for the night.
I woke up early again on Sunday to play with them and we actually let them come into the bedroom/office for the whole day! They were ecstatic to get to run around and play in such a large area – wait until they find out there is also a living room! For now, we have them locked in the bathroom while we are gone during the day, and they are allowed to stay out at night. They haven’t caused much trouble so far – only knocking over a vase holding dried lavender that I have displayed in the bathroom. It didn’t break, there were just tiny pieces of lavender scattered all over the counter, so no harm done.
We love them already! They are still getting used to the different sounds in our house, but they are warming up to us nicely. As predicted, Finn likes to hide under the bed! But when he comes out to play, he and Felix dart around the room making those adorable little chirping sounds. We still can’t believe we actually have two cats! We love giving them lots of attention and snuggles and we are excited to make memories with them!
Thanks for reading!
-Rebecca
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