As many of our more consistent readers know, I have a cat named Scrabbles. I adopted Scrabbles almost eight years ago from the excellent Oregon Humane Society. Since then he’s been my best bud and has seen me through some rough times.
However, he was two when I got him, and I’ve had him for about eight years. This puts him well into older cat territory. I wanted to make sure he had a rich, fulfilling life. I’ve heard from many people that one of the best ways to do that for older cats is to get them a younger buddy. Older cats with younger playmates tend to live longer. Possibly because of a latent paternal instinct. But who knows really. In any case I thought getting him a partner would help keep him engaged and happy.
So I started looking on the Oregon Humane Society website. They keep great records of all of the various animals they have available and online profiles. So I had a few qualities I wanted. I wanted a black cat so their hair wouldn’t show up on my clothes. I wanted a longer haired cat because I think their cuter. I wanted a lady cat so Scrabbles would (hopefully) feel less threatened by her. And finally I wanted a kitten. So I went online a few times a week to see if they had one come up that met these qualities.
Finally after about a month, they posted one named Peanut. A domestic medium hair kitten with a smokey black coat. All of 10 months old, supposedly, when we got to meet her she seemed MUCH younger. She seemed perfect so we all headed over there as a group and picked her up while narrowly avoiding adopting every cat and dog in the place.
Upon getting her home we renamed her Imperator Purriosa after Charlize Theron’s character in my favorite movie, Mad Max: Fury Road. She immediately hid in a corner of the room that I had set aside for her. But it only took her a few days to be much friendlier. More to come as she grows up.
Aww congratulations – what a cute cat!