Kitty stories

Kitty has arrived. The day she was scheduled to come, I packed up a lot of Penelope's things into a smaller box and missed her so bad I cried.

We talked over prospective cat names for a couple of days and settled on "Ada," after Ada, Countess of Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and possibly the world's first computer programmer. Here are some cute things if you're interested in reading further about her. I also considered "George" after George Sands and George Eliot, who were both awesome historical babes, or, as Ben elegantly phrased it, "misbehaving women."

Ada is slowly settling in, I think; she wanders around making meows and meeps and wants attention. She has been eating the food we bought for her--say what ye will about its exorbitant price, but the stuff we put her on means smaller and less smelly poops so I think it's worth the $$.

Sadly, the stress has made her a little sick, I think--the cat lady told us she'd been adopted out previously and returned because she got a kitty cold. What she has is basically kitty herpes, and it's like the canker sores I get in that it flares up when I'm stressed or sick. She had a few sneezes and then today has a sad goopy eye that is essentially kitty pinkeye. After chatting with the cat lady on the phone, we got some eye ointment from the pharmacy and I smeared it at least in the general vicinity of the eye. As you can imagine, Ada was not amused, but she was gracious enough to not hold it against us and immediately wanted to get pets and purr afterwards.

On Saturday, Ben and I went up to the Plateau to check out a meet-and-greet that the local greyhound rescue was holding. We are still thinking of getting another dog, and I'm considering a greyhound because they are 1) ridiculously lazy and enjoy living in apartments and 2) ridiculously healthy and can live to 12 or 14, which is insane for a big dog. Unlike a lot of other dog breeds, they still do what they were created to do, which means that there's no room for hip dysplasia. Their main disadvantage for us is that they can have a very strong prey drive, which means kitties could be in danger. We spoke a bit to the rescue people and were told that maybe 10% of greyhounds could never live with a cat, while the rest of them seem to be able to distinguish between a cat in the house and a cat outside of the house. Cat in the house is not for eating or chasing, but cats outside are apparently free game.

I still don't know what to do about getting a dog. Penelope proved to us that mutts can be just as unhealthy as purebreds, and I don't want something that's going to be a cancer factory or a refugee from a puppy mill with distemper and who knows what else. Those dogs need homes, don't get me wrong, but as I tried to explain to the cat lady when we discussed potential animals with FIV (kitty AIDS), we'd be maybe interested in a compassionate adoption further down the line--an older animal, or one with a treatable disease or disability--but right now, my heart just can't handle it.