Meet the home team

Although I pull inspiration from a variety of sources, there are currently four furry friends with whom my husband and I share our lives. I figure that introducing them to you now is as good a time as any. So here they are, in order of their tenure in our home.

Bo Kitty

Also know as Putt, Putter and a few other names that shall, for now, remain within the family, Bo’s given name is Baudelaire (but who wants to have to say that all day?).

Bo was our one shot at obtaining a purebred cat. After thirty years of rescues and strays who wandered in and didn’t leave, I decided that once in my life I wanted a cat who was exactly what I wanted, size-wise, color-wise and temperament-wise. A big, handsome Maine Coon.

We followed cat shows for about three years and finally settled on a breeder we had seen several times. When she had available kittens, my husband and I went to her home and were immediately captivated by him.

Bo is now nearly 11 and has been everything we could have ever dreamed of in a cat…and a few things we never imagined. But more about that later.

Musette

Musette was a rescue. She was brought into the veterinary hospital where I was working in one of those cardboard carriers (the kind with the row of holes around the top) by someone who had made an appointment to get her spayed. While the owner was filling out the paperwork, he went out to his car to get her shot record…and promptly drove away, leaving her in the lobby.

Once we opened the carrier it was obvious that she was quite pregnant. Having no history on her we placed her back in the isolation ward, where she gave birth to five kittens the next day. Although two of the kitten died shortly after birth, Muse was an excellent mother to the other three, and when they were ready to be adopted new homes were quickly found. It was a veterinary hospital, after all, so we had the odds stacked in our favor.

Muse was another story. Try as we might, no one was interested in a young adult cat, and she was growing increasingly “cage crazy” from living out weeks of her life in the isolation ward. Finally, the head veterinarian made the decision to spay her and informed us that if we hadn’t found a home for her by the end of the weekend she would have to go to Animal Control.

So I found her a home. She’s been with us for nearly as long as Bo, just shy of 11 years.

Weebles

Weebles, or Weebs, is another rescue. Someone brought her into the veterinary hospital when she was approximately three days old, saying they found her on their porch and didn’t know what to do with her.

I decided to bottle feed her until she was old enough to be placed with someone. And, in the end, she was placed. With us.

Weebs is an odd cat in every sense, especially since none of the other cats wanted anything to do with her. Fortunately our dog became quite enamored with her, and he taught her all of the important things in life: Always greet your parents at the door at the end of a long day; come when you’re called; and, most importantly, if it’s good enough for them to eat, it’s worth begging for a taste.

Weebles is now 8 years old.

Darby
Front and center in the profile photo sits Darby, a dog of truly indeterminate heritage.

When our sheltie, Bosco, was euthanized due to cancer, it didn’t take long for the hole in our hearts (and our home) to grow so large that only another dog could fill it.

While I was busy volunteering at our local SPCA’s cat neuter clinic, the public relations guy called me out to take a peek at a couple of new arrivals, one of which was him. Seems he’d been wandering in the middle of the road when a woman nearly ran over him. Rather than driving on, she stopped, picked him up and brought him to the shelter.

One look at that crop of white fluff, only broken by his jet black nose, and I was done for. I called my husband out to peek at him, and we were hooked.

Although he was diagnosed with parvo only days after our adoption, we were able to nurse him through it and he’s been the high-king of household dogdom ever since.

Darby is now two years old.

So, there you have it. The cast of characters with whom we share our home, our lives and more than a little of our bed. Trust me, this information will save you a lot of head-scratching later.