From commentor Mary G:
This is Sophie. I got her on Feb. 1, 1991, at the Pasadena, CA Humane Society. I had lost my first cat six months before and told myself I was just going in to see how the shelter looked after a major remodel. Yeah, right.
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The volunteer opened cage after cage and handed me cat after cat. I could not pick one over the other – I wanted to take them all home.
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She put Sophie (then called Misty) back into her cage and started to open the next one, but Sophie stuck her leg through the wire and tapped me on the shoulder very gently with her paw. That did it. She still taps me with a paw if she wants food or attention, but only on the left leg and arm, never the right.
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She had no use for any other human being. She didn’t want me to pet her if I was standing up or sitting down, but if I was lying on the sofa or the bed, and no one else was around, she would snuggle and purr and demand scritches. She sleeps on my hip at night.
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She knew my car and when I got home from work, I’d see her head peeking out between the curtains, and as I came up on the front porch, she’d run to the door. But once I unlocked the door, before I could open it, she would run back behind the coffee table and look away like she couldn’t care less if I was there or not.
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A year or two ago, out of the blue she decided she was a lap cat after all, not with me, but my mother. The second mom sits down, Sophie climbs up. Who knows why, she’s never even seen another cat in a lap.
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Her kidneys have been bad since she was three years old, but I feed her the special food from the vet and they’ve held up so far, thank goodness.
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Nancy Irving
I think cats know the individual sound of your car’s engine. Their sense of sound, like their sense of smell, is very acute.
I figured this out because my cat, an outdoor cat, was always waiting for me when I got home, though he roamed far and wide.
When I got a new car, he wasn’t waiting for me the first week or so, but straggled in later with a kind of annoyed expression on his face, as if I were trying to snooker him.
Eventually he got to recognize the sound of the new car.
Beeb
Sophie is beautiful. Thanks for sharing her with us.
debit
What a beauty.
Svensker
I love cats with eyeliner.
debit
And tabby cats are second only to black cats for teh pretty, IMO. I also love the M on their foreheads. Our tabby Max came from a shelter as well; he was about 8 months old and jumped onto my daughters shoulder, then slithered down into her lap and pretty much stayed there for the next 20 years. He’s mellowed out a lot in the last few years, but I used to say that the M on his forehead stood for Massive Pain in the Ass.
Kristine
Thank you for Sophie’s story. Such a lovely kitty.
Oh look–they have earrings. And my keychain broke yesterday, so I need another…
ellie
Kitteh!
Mnemosyne
She looks a lot like my girl Annie. Heck, they could even be related since I got Annie through Happy Strays in La Canada.
(They’re an actual rescue group, not one of the ones that just culls the healthy animals from the shelters. Keaton was found by a homeless person who took care of him until the crazy cat lady came by and Annie was found living with a feral colony even though she wasn’t herself feral. If you do urban animal rescue, definitely make friends with your local homeless people — if they can, they’ll help you out.)
2th&nayle
Sofia is a Beauty! About 2 months ago I got a little long haired tabby kitten, named “Britches”. She’s about 7 month’s old and is already empress of all she surveys. She’s already layed claim to a low table between the two recliners in the living room. If there is anything on the table when she decides to take possession, she simply knocks it all in the floor, plops her butt down and looks around like, “Who dares clutter the Queen’s throne?”
Sounds like the woman I’m currently dating.
asiangrrlMN
@2th&nayle: Dating, yur doin’ it rong.
Sophie is a beautiful and sweet kitteh. Love the story of the tapping on one arm.
@debit: Aw, Max is a doll!
@Mnemosyne: Dead-ringer. Annie is gorgeous!
marina
Be sure and have your vet (not a vet tech, but the vet) check your cat’s blood pressure. High blood pressure goes hand-in-hand with kidney disease, and if you control the blood pressure (easy to do), you slow down the kidney disease. For more on kidney disease, see http://www.felinecrf.org
Mnemosyne
In cat news, Charlotte would like everyone to know that she iz a mighty hunter — she just caught and ate a fly. Hopefully she will not be puking it back up later today.