Happy 4th of July!! A Post About Violet

Tomorrow I'm leaving to go to visit my grandmother on Cape Cod, MA!! While I'm gone, I'll still be doing Project Purr work, but only the computer stuff (it's kind of hard to trap cats from the other side of the country). Anyway, I was thinking about how much I'm going to miss my kitty Violet, and how in about a year, she'll be flying to the east coast with me, so I decided to write a little about her.

When I was 10, my family only had two cats. One was a completely unapproachable feral, and the other was a big, beautiful black boy named Davenport. My parents got Davenport before I was born, and when I was 10, he was about 14. In the early summer, Dav was diagnosed with kidney failure. We knew he didn't have a lot of time left.

I read articles and did some research, and discovered that when you have an older cat (or dog), it's a very good idea to get a kitten (or puppy) of the opposite gender. The younger animal will invigorate the older animal, and even if they don't end up getting along, the older one will still muster up some energy to boss the younger one around. In other words, it can prolong the older animal's life.

I talked to Dav's veterinarian about what I had discovered, and he agreed completely. He told my mom that we should get a female kitten immediately. Of course, I was thrilled!

I didn't want just any kitten though. I had all of these specifications, so I took about two weeks to "kitten shop." I used Petfinder.com, and the Santa Cruz SPCA website to search for the kitten of my dreams. I think I must have checked those websites at least twice a day.

Eventually, I found I found a little orange and white girl who fit all of my qualifications, and that very day went out to the SPCA to look at her. But when I arrived, I found out that she had already been adopted! Since I was there, I decided to take a look at the kitties already there. I discovered two kittens who hadn't been put on the website yet. They were siblings, a boy named Biglet, and a girl named Face. My mom wanted to take both of them, but we couldn't, because Biglet had a medical condition that wouldn't allow him to go outside. Face, however was perfect.

I remember I didn't want to adopt her right away. I wanted to wait a night to make sure everything was set for her to come to the house.

The next day my whole family went to the SPCA to adopt her. I renamed her Violet, after the flower (not the color, despite my pattern of naming cats after colors). Also, at the time she was a "shy violet." I spent the next two weeks exclusively with her. She was my kitten, no one else's. After two weeks with her, my family tried to take me out to dinner, but I cried, because I didn't want to leave her.

She has been my best friend and constant companion ever since. Of all of my cats, she is the one who is actually mine, not the family's. She only really likes me, although recently she's been allowing my sister and mom to pet her a little. I love college, and I love Vermont, but being away from her is hard. And for her, being away from me is hard too. Cats can't live in the dorms, but Junior and Senior year I'll be hopefully in a cat friendly apartment, and then she'll come out to Vermont to live with me.

At nine years old, she's a very smart cat. In the past couple months, she has figured out how to get her collar off. I thought at first that her usual purple collar was broken, so I got her a new collar (the one in the picture), but she's already taken it off three times. I'm going to have to do some brainstorming if she won't just leave it on.

Even though Violet's not a Project Purr kitty, or even an ex-feral, I wanted to share her story because of what I told my parents when I was 10. I said, "I know there are a lot of cats out there that need homes, and that kittens find homes easily. I know that any kitten at the SPCA will find a home no problem, but older cats might be put down. But I'm a kid, and I want the experience of raising kitten and keeping her for her whole life. I want to be able to grow up with a kitten. However, I promise that this will be the only kitten I will ever adopt from the SPCA or any animal shelter. The next cat I get will be one I rescue myself or will be a special needs, elderly, or feral cat from a shelter. I promise to save all of the other cats I ever own."