I called this morning to put a hold on her, and she was adopted about an hour after I left yesterda. So no new feline overlord for the Cole household. I know a ton of you will be upset, but I am ok with it. She just was not the right cat for me, it turns out.
That’s sort of how I view how the universe works with animals. The right cat or dog for you will end up in your household. I know she was gorgeous and super friendly and would have made a great companion, but she would have been that way with everyone, and clearly was as she went the same afternoon I saw her. One of these days it will happen, and then I will have the right cat.
Plus, think of the gift she has already given us. I can sit and daydream about the endless possibilities of what it would have been like to have her, to think about her lying on my neck while I watched tv, or cuddling with Steve, or curled up. And on top of that, maybe she went to a first time cat owner, who fell in love with her immediately and now will rescue lots more animals over their lifetime because of their experience with Giselle.
So it’s ok. I hope she has a good life and makes her owners happy. One of these days the right cat for me will end up in my house.
stinger
❤️
cain
I totally get what you mean. My two silly black velociraptors as I affectionately call them accepted me when they didn’t for anyone else. The lady told me she has never seen them react like that with anyone else. They knew. She spent a ton of time prior to me meeting them to prepare me for what she thought would be complete aloofness 😂
Steeplejack
😥 but 🥲
Omnes Omnibus
You are doing sour grapes wrong.
raven
We would have NEVER gotten a pit bull. Now it’s been over a year and she’s such a sweetheart.
She’s also terrible on the leash with other dogs so, when my wife broke her foot while walking Artie, we had to find another outlet for her. This dog park at the VFW is a mile away from our house and we’d never gone there. It turns out that she’s just another dog when she’s off the leash romping and now we go for hours and hours a day!
Steeplejack
@raven:
Over a year with Artie?! How time flies.
Alison Rose
Aw, that’s a shame–but you are certainly right that it just means she was meant to join another family. And you know, sometimes if you just visit your local shelter, the right one will leap out at you…sometimes literally!
With my previous cat, Zoe (RIP), I’d gone to the shelter’s website and had made a list of 4 or 5 cats that fit the criteria I was looking for. She was on the list but there wasn’t any one particular cat that I was focused on. I went to the shelter to meet them and make a choice, started walking down the corridor where the cat rooms were. She was in the second room, a little one by herself, and as I got near, she came running up to the window at the front, put her front paws up on the glass, and started meowing her little head off at me. I looked at the sheet on the door, saw she was one from my list, and asked to be let in to meet her. She crawled all over my lap right away, ate a treat from my palm, and started playing with my boot laces.
I took her home that day and she was with me for 13 years. So yeah…the right one will make themselves known to you when you encounter them :)
Narya
Empirical Brewery is making room for new BA beers, so the old ones are $5 a bottle: SCORE.
StringOnAStick
You are a mench, Cole. What a positive way to look at this.
raven
@Steeplejack: Yea, seems like yesterday.
Anonymous At Work
Also, no worrying that Steve would dispute another cat’s claim to Overlordship/Overladyship of the Cole household. Seen and heard too many such disputes in my time to ever attempt multiple cats that are not already bonded.
kalakal
Great attitude.
cain
@raven:
My managers name is Arti and it is pronounced Aarthee.. but people say Artie .. drives her nuts.
indycat32
Since we’re talking cats …. I care for 5 “neighborhood cats”, 3 of which are black. Monday morning when I fed them, I notice a black kitty next to the AC watching. She quietly sneaks over and eats. Tuesday, the same. Wednesday, she brought her two kittens with her for breakfast. Thursday I wasn’t home, so I don’t know. Friday she brings her three!! kittens with her and today she brings her FOUR!! kittens with her for breakfast. Four solid black kittens, about 8 weeks old. I think I’m a black cat magnet.
prostratedragon
Oh, well. Not surprising, as she’s such a cutie, but adopting even part is serious enough to take time to think. I have confidence that other nice opportunities will come along.
zhena gogolia
Wasn’t John adopting another cat that had feline leukemia?
eclare
@raven: So wonderful!
Mai Naem mobile
I’m not worried John. I’m sure you’ll end up fail fostering some stray cat you’ll find while you’re out and about some morning yelling for Thurston, freezing your ass off dressed in your holey cargo shorts and ratty robe.
eclare
@zhena gogolia: That was what I remembered. The kitten was in quarantine.
MisterForkbeard
@zhena gogolia: I don’t think it had FL, but it was exposed.
Raoul Paste
Think of the gift she has already given us…”
That little phrase was a gift from you to everybody
rikyrah
@indycat32:
that is so cute :)
sab
Our guy who looks like Steve is kind of an asshole to the other four cats but he gets along with the pitbull. So maybe that lovely girl is better off with her new family.
rikyrah
You have a good attitude, Cole.
Can’t wait to see which kitty lands at Casa Cole.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I was thinking the same — I wish I had that sort of attitude. I tend to beat myself up about lost opportunities. John’s attitude is healthier.
tokyokie
Most of the cats I’ve had since moving away from my parents were kind of forced on me: somebody learning that the apartment lease deal forbade having cats, a cat left behind by the family after their house burned, kittens literally thrust into my hands by somebody who knew I love cats. That sort of thing.
But then there’s the ones I felt I’d be destined to take in. My first post-parents’ house cats was Cat Nine From Outer Space. I came out of a building to where my car was parked, and I heard an awful yowling. Omigod, I’ve run over a cat, I thought. I looked under the front bumper, didn’t see anything. Did the same at the back, still nothing. Walked back around to the front, and this orange tuxedo kitten, probably about 8 weeks old, came sauntering out from under my car, still yelling. I picked him up and he was purring loudly. And as I had been thinking about finding a kitten anyway, I decided he was the one I should have. I guess I had him about 14 years before kidney issues (I’ve since learned to feed cats grain-free food) did him in, but Nine was utterly devoted to me, watching through the window to see me return from work then running to the entrance hall to greet me at the door. Or sleeping every night curled around my head as he did his last years.
I had to pick up some cat food one day about 12 years ago, so I stopped by PetSmart, but not the one I usually frequent. I’d been thinking about getting a Siamese, and lo and behold, the local animal shelter had brought all its occupants to the store that day to try to adopt them out. The animals included three Siamese in a small pen, and as I was walking over to take a closer look, one of them, the lilac-point, climbed on top of his brother’s head to get to the top of the enclosure. I picked up the little guy and named him Marvin. Cost me all of $10.
Then a couple of years ago, during the pandemic, we were down to just Marvin in our cat herd, so we decided to get another one. And as we’d had done well with Marvin, we looked for another Siamese. We looked at local animal shelters, but Covid was keeping a lot of people indoors, and shelters had experienced a run on pet adoptions. Besides, most of the cats listed as “Siamese” at shelters were usually only part Siamese, and we wanted one that a purebred, not for show but for the breed’s idiosyncratic behaviors. We live in Fort Worth, but every time I contacted somebody with a Siamese kitten, it had already been sold. So I expanded my search and started looking daily through Craig’s List ads in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio for Siamese kittens. I finally found some down in New Braunfels, which is midway between Austin and San Antonio. I immediately contacted the guy and told him we’d like to take one of the males, but it would be a few days until we could get down there because it’d have to be on my wife’s day off. He agreed to hold one back, and a couple of days later, we made the 4 1/2-hour drive to New Braunfels to retrieve the little fellow.
By the time we got there, Franco was the only kitten from the litter left. The guy from whom we got him said he seemed to like the Fancy Feast varieties that included salmon. And to this day, I don’t think we’ve ever gotten him to eat anything that didn’t have salmon in it. Maybe that’s why he’s only two-thirds Marvin’s size. Franco doesn’t like any humans besides other than my wife and me, hiding until human company leaves. But he seems to love us, especially me. But he is very strange. He sometimes expresses his affection by biting — he’ll be sitting next to me on the bed as I put on my shoes, and he’ll chomp on my elbow, purring the entire time — and frequently he will dance around with his back arched and his tail fluffed at the sight of one of us. I’ll ignore his strange behavior, because he really is a sweet cat. And I’ll put up with having to put a Band-Aid on a new wound every week because I love the little troublemaker so much. And I’m not sure other prospective cat owners would tolerate his peculiarities, which I think are what makes him special.
sab
@raven: What good news about Artie at the dog park.
Suzanne
You have the right attitude, Cole. It’ll all work out as it should. I don’t believe in destiny, but I do believe in human-animal connectedness, and you are right that the next Cole Critter will cross your path and you will know it.
I need to take my own advice.
BigJimSlade
Ah Giselle, we hardly knew ye. :-)
MattF
OT. TFG tried to force Trump Media shareholders to give shares to Melania. Gifted WaPo link.
mrmoshpotato
@Narya:
Yumm-o! And a pizza from Fat Chris’s Pizza and Such?
Alison Rose
@MattF: Anniversary present?
MattF
@Alison Rose: Perhaps one of the clauses in their prefucktual agreement.
The Moar You Know
Any animal that gets adopted is a Very Good Thing. I’ve missed out on a couple I would have liked, but John’s got the right attitude here; the one that needs you will show up sooner or later.
oldgold
Read the headline and thought, “Hot Damn, Cole is the reason she is leaving Tom.“
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@MattF:
Hmmm – someone who claims to be rich, but in reality is begging for money
PBK
@tokyokie: I love this story. Thank you for sharing it. I’m finding this whole post especially poignant because we just had a bad health scare with our 14 year old lord of the manor. They do choose us and part of that choosing is trusting us to make the right choices for them when they are ready to move on to the next of their nine lives.
zhena gogolia
@oldgold: Haha. She only has one “l” though.
sab
I have a mutt (pitmix) and I prefer mutts, to the point of snobbishness, So I think designer breeds are silly. A mutt with a high pricetag when you can get one cheap at the pound.
But in my neighborhood, or up the hill in the better neighborhood everyone has a labradoodle. I used to sneer. I met one today. Nice dog, basically just a very large calm Airedale. No more sneering. Just a big nice dog.
MomSense
@indycat32:
Black cats are the best cats.
eachother
I had the experience of the right pet, in this case a cat, showing up.
Doing a remodel and being almost finished it was time to eat the first breakfast on the window bench. Then saying this would be a perfect spot in the sun for a cat. On cue, an unknown cat comes in and lays down on the window seat in the sun. After finding out no one would claim her she became the right pet till the end of her days.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: She’s getting a second one in the divorce.
Dakota Expat
❤️ You go, Cole! Exactly right (and yet so sweet)!
Quiltingfool
Day 3 – Allie the New Cat Under the Bed saga: Mr. Quiltingfool and I may have not done the right thing, but we managed to coerce Miss Allie out from under the bed. During this gentle persuasion, she was purring and pushing her head into our hands for pets. Mr. Q picked her up and took her into the living room — she didn’t bite, claw or cry. We closed the doors to the other rooms and set her down. She found a “safe” corner and hunkered down. When we go over there, she is happy to be petted, she rolls over, acts like she just loves the attention.
I know I probably should have let her be, but she hasn’t eaten or drank since being in the shelter. That worries me. Also, with her in the living room, we can go over to her corner and pet her. She seems to enjoy it. I just think that now we can pet her and show her we are okay; couldn’t do that very well when she was under the bed. She loved attention at the shelter, and I want her to get the attention she enjoys.
Boy, I hope I didn’t scar her for life!
jackmac
Cole, sorry to read that Giselle didn’t work out. But don’t worry about eventually finding a new cat overlord. A cat will find and pick you.
In the meantime, allow me to share my story about our guy, Rocco. He’s a two-year-old male with beautiful grey and white fur. He’s a feisty one who was owner-surrendered two or three times and didn’t “show well” for a previous prospective adopter according to volunteers at the shelter. Then we we arrived. Rocco went into charm overdrive by hopping on me, nuzzling my face and knocking off a baseball cap while his purr was turned up to 11. Of course we had to adopt him.
Rocco is a tough guy who came through Chicago Animal Control and I believe is our 14th cat (my wife and I have been together a LONG time) and we’re used to feline behavior. Rocco is usually a very sweet boy who loves to hang out with us. He’ll purr, bump his head against us and enthusiastically lick hairy arms or faces. Occasionally he’ll get pissed off (if teased) and launch an attack on my legs with claws extended and sharp teeth. That’s okay. It’s part of his very unique personality and we love him. Rocco will NEVER again be an owner surrender. He’s home for good. (And hopefully he’ll appear in next year’s BJ calendar, too).
WaterGirl
@eachother: Wow.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Anonymous At Work: Yeah, pee wars are no fun at all
indycat32
@MomSense: yes they are. Two of my indoor cats are black.
zhena gogolia
@Quiltingfool: Are you sure she hasn’t eaten? They’re sneaky that way. I’m sure she’s going to come around!
ETA: And no, you most certainly did not scar her for life.
realbtl
It took 4 months of looking to find a replacement for my 14 yo Wiemaraner including many conversations with myself that boiled down to “You’re 74 with 2 replaced knees, 1 hip and 5 screws holding each ankle together, you need a SMALL dog. Finally found a long hair chihuahua of #10 lbs at the pound.. Pound named him Pipsqueak which I felt undignified so it is now Bear. And he is perfect.
sab
@Quiltingfool: Night time is for timid cats to prowl and eat and drink. It’s amazing that she lets you carry and pet her.
Cjcat
We are known among our family and friends as animal people. We have two shelter dogs, a formally feral cat and a little shih tzu rescue we found abandoned, tied to a bench, starving, sick and absolutely filthy. So people know we care.
I won’t say who but we got a call about my deceased brother in law’s chihuahua. Brad has been gone for three years and we were told if we didn’t come get the dog he would be put down. He was a hard two hour drive through city traffic and I really have never cared for the breed. Still, we couldn’t let Peanut be killed so we went to get him. He was in an abandoned trailer with a broken window. The floor was littered in dog food and poop and the little bugger was not glad to see us. He looked like a doggie version of Howard Hughes. His nails so long he could barely walk, covered in something oily and reeking of urine. (We found out later he will drink his own pee. Probably because he had no water.) After chasing him around for awhile slipping on god knows what, we cornered him and threw a shirt over his head and fought our way home through dangerous traffic with the terrified little thing, about four pounds of fear and confusion. He was such an unattractive fellow we took to calling him Weird Al. We planned on finding a rescue to take him.
Now, about six weeks later, cured of his uti, I wouldn’t take a thousand dollars for him. I call him my nutty buddy. He is still weird though.
The ones that really need you find their way to you no matter what.
Villiageidiocy
@tokyokie: with one of our cats the puffy tail and dancing bit are an excited solicitation for play. Try having string or a toy handy to try this out when he next does this. Just make sure to guard against claws and teeth as the emotions are running high.
Quiltingfool
@zhena gogolia: The food and water are in the kitchen (our living room, “dining” room and kitchen are one big room) and hopefully she will sneak in there at night.
She is such a chunky, furry love bug – I will love it when she chooses to sit in my lap!
sab
@Cjcat: Chihuahuas are weird little guys. Bred to be burgler alarms. Chihuahuas raised our pitbull. They made her kind of barky, but otherwise good.
zhena gogolia
@Quiltingfool: My beloved semi-ferals never got into lap sitting, but they were incredibly affectionate and would snuggle up beside us.
sab
@Quiltingfool: We have five cats. All of them are –friendly with us but only two show up for company.
Cjcat
@sab: He announces himself whenever we let him out with big bad barking. The shih tzu though is really the yappy one. The two of them have formed a chorus.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
You might already know this: the Sunday Times crossword goes up at 6:00 p.m. ET, instead of the usual 10:00. (So does the Monday one, which I presume is a glitch.) I’m about to dive into it.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: I never do them on the wrong day!
nclurker
i think good pets just happen.
my old rescue pit’s cancer returned.and i had to have my great vet come do the final deed.
gave him a steak breakfast with 30 mgs of oxycontin,and she came an hour later,
and gave my old friend his final shot.
just happened,my daughter who fosters had a just received a boxer mix.about 12’who’s former owner
was a dealer who got busted and neglected to tell anyone he had his dog chained up behind his house.ten fucking days before he was discovered.
had to have 8 teeth pulled after trying to chew thru the chain.
he came to visit labor day week end,and is currently sleeping on the couch on my old dogs heating
pad.he’ only put on 20 lb’s since he arrived .
damn good dog.
twain said “the more i know people,the more i like dogs”
amen.
Anonymous At Work
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Trade pee wars for the 3 am yowling contests where you need to keep em separated (remove song from head) before one or both is seriously injured.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
[Jack Benny] Well!
I do them as soon as I can get my hands on them, although sometimes I wait until the actual day. I’ve got three big Post puzzles in the queue after midnight.