Mama Kat Thursday: The Shelf Cat

The Mama Kat blog prompt topic for today is: "Tell us how your pet came to be a member of your family."

It's an interesting story really. 

I mean, when you want to adopt to cat and you're standing in a shelter surrounded by 40 choices, how do you pick the right one?

Sunni, age 13. She's not allowed outside
on the ground, but Hubby will hold her on
his lap on the patio.

Luckily, Sunni picked us.

It was 2003 and we'd been without a cat for 3 years.--it took me awhile to feel ready to face the decision of choosing a new one after the death of our previous beloved. 

There's a no-kill shelter located on our Air Force Base and we went there.
It was my first trip to a shelter.

I also prayed hard before-hand for a way to know which cat to choose, one that would be a good companion for us.

Our goal was to adopt a mature, indoor cat of docile character, younger then 5 years.  

We walked into the cat room.
It was overwhelming. So many cats.
So many desperate hearts longing for attention. 

I looked at my husband. "How do we even decide?" 

He said, "Let's try picking them up to see if they resist or if they're willing to be held."

I thought, "Wow, what a simple idea."

So we started picking up cats. 

The shelter had two rooms: one inside and one screened-in outdoor room with rows of wood shelves for residents to sun themselves on.

I saw a white and black kitty just laying quietly on a shelf and picked her up. She didn't mind this, so I carried her back into the other inside room to show Hubby, who my husband was sitting cross-legged on the floor, petting various cats.

I put her down near him, saying, "What about this one?"

 He patted his lap and she hopped right into his lap, then lay down. I sat in a nearby chair and patted my lap, inviting her up. Hubby set her off his lap, so she could and she immediately hopped up onto my lap, then lay down and started licking my wrist.

Just at that moment, one of the shelter workers peeked in to check on us and saw this. With great surprise, she exclaimed, "I've never seen that one do that with anybody!"

That was it. That's how I knew our cat had just picked us.

We didn't take her home that day, but did paid the adoption fees for her adoption. That when he found out her official name was "Sunshine," though we didn't like it much. It didn't seem to suit her, so we shortened it to "Sunni." (pronounced "Sunny")

It was a couple days before we were ready to take her home, but I visited her once in the shelter. She recognized me as soon as I walked out into the screened outdoor room and was practically doing somersaults on the shelf as soon as she saw me.

A day later we did take her home, brought her in the house, let her out of her carrier and she proceeded to run back and forth between us to be petted and give us love-licks, all the while purring loudly, like she was overjoyed and thanking us.

She's been with us for 11 1/2 years now, altogether a marvelous companion. She likes being where we are, sitting in a chair at the table while we eat and going to bed when we go to bed. 

She'll regard us with an intelligent gaze anytime we call her name. 

She especially adores the Hubby and loves him to play with her. Her favorite game is to hide in a plastic bag and have him grab her from underneath, so she can flip over trying to grab his hand. Even at 13.

That's how Sunni came to live in our forever home.

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What kind of pet do you have?

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