Jon and I have been looking to add a pet to our little empty-nesting family. We've always had pets since the early years of our marriage. Our last pet, a dog, died a year or so before we moved to the Netherlands. It didn't seem like a good idea to get another pet before making the transition with all its busyness and turmoil, so we waited. Then we were making adjustments and we were assessing our new lifestyle. We have furloughs now and we travel on a regular basis. It took a while to decide that we would still like a pet and that we could work around these things. We've looked for dogs and cats for about two years now. Wouldn't think it would be that hard, but the language barrier and high costs here both delayed the process.
If we looked on the Internet the animals were very high priced, sometimes even ordinary cats were for sale. I have never seen that before. Sure, pedigree show cats (yes, they actually have those) I understand, but what I would call "mutt" cats selling for fifty euros? Anyway, we did find some gratis - free - but when we wrote the folks, they usually didn't write back. Probably didn't understand our Dutch or our request to converse in English. We went to the pounds in local cities and all we could find were older cats. We even went back to get one very friendly half-grown cat, but the Keeper of the Cats told us a bit about her and she had been found out of doors and would not be happy as a solely indoor cat, which is what we wanted to have.
We knew we were going to have to get a very young cat so that it hadn't had the chance to acclimate to the outdoors. It was winter when we began to pursue this avenue. Here, cats are not born year round, they are mostly born in the spring/summer months. This is a strange phenomenon, because cats are somewhat unique in that mating stimulates ovulation, so normally they can get pregnant any time. Maybe they are outdoors less in the cold months. Don't know. It is also said that the kittens that are born in the winter aren't as strong and healthy and we were discouraged from trying to adopt or find one during the winter.
So we waited. Spring came and our dear colleagues began to check the newspaper ads for us and listen to information from friends. We were looking for a girl, a young kitten, one that had been raised in a family so that it was handled by humans and acclimated. The latter was extremely important or the cat would never bond with us. Finally we heard of a litter of kittens born on a farm to some friends of our colleagues, Ted and Dawn.
Dawn took me out to see them when they were about three weeks old. There were four of them. I had in my mind that I would really love a gray tabby cat with white on its chest and face. For some reason they didn't have that exact model :-) They did have a beautiful kitten that was white all over with blue eyes, a black and white kitten and two brown tabbies. I immediately sparked to the white one. After seeing the kittens, who were too young to take home at that time and even too small to accurately sex them, Jon and I headed home to wait. In the meantime we had a two week trip to Turkey, Croatia and some southern European countries. We enjoyed our time away and came back eager to see the kittens.
It turns out the beautiful white one was the only male in the bunch. All the kittens were a bit skiddish, but one seemed to warm up a bit more than the others, so we chose her. We are still working on a name as none comes to mind immediately. She is now beginning her third day with us. She has adapted amazingly from a box of straw in the barn to our home and to us. She was litter-boxed trained within a couple of hours. Within an hour and half she went from being not too sure about me to sleeping in my lap. She cried the first night when we put her in the bathroom to sleep, even though we left a nice box with a towel, a little stuffed animal for a friend and a ticking clock. Last night - nary a peep. By the morning of her second day with us she had given me some head-lovin' and I'd heard her purr, so I knew she was settling in very well. She eats well, but misses her Momma.
Every so often, usually when she is getting sleepy, she cuddles up to some soft fleshy part of me (not hard to find) and starts nuzzling around. Sometimes she licks and "tastes" my fingertips. It is a little pitiful. She is still just a tiny little baby. She can sit in the palm of my hand. (She looks bigger in this photo than she actually is.)
She is very energetic and playful when she's awake, but like any young baby she also sleeps a lot. She enjoys having her tummy rubbed and she lets me handle her feet (important for claw clipping later). She seems to have decided Jon and I are safe and she likes to interact with us. I think she is going to be a very sweet cat. It has been nearly five years since we have had a pet in our home. I didn't realize it had been so long until I actually calculated it. What is more amazing is that an indoor cat lives an average of twenty years. I could very well be seventy before this cat leaves us. Hard to comprehend!
Jon and I have been looking to add a pet to our little empty-nesting family. We've always had pets since the early years of our marriage. Our last pet, a dog, died a year or so before we moved to the Netherlands. It didn't seem like a good idea to get another pet before making the transition with all its busyness and turmoil, so we waited. Then we were making adjustments and we were assessing our new lifestyle. We have furloughs now and we travel on a regular basis. It took a while to decide that we would still like a pet and that we could work around these things. We've looked for dogs and cats for about two years now. Wouldn't think it would be that hard, but the language barrier and high costs here both delayed the process.
If we looked on the Internet the animals were very high priced, sometimes even ordinary cats were for sale. I have never seen that before. Sure, pedigree show cats (yes, they actually have those) I understand, but what I would call "mutt" cats selling for fifty euros? Anyway, we did find some gratis - free - but when we wrote the folks, they usually didn't write back. Probably didn't understand our Dutch or our request to converse in English. We went to the pounds in local cities and all we could find were older cats. We even went back to get one very friendly half-grown cat, but the Keeper of the Cats told us a bit about her and she had been found out of doors and would not be happy as a solely indoor cat, which is what we wanted to have.
We knew we were going to have to get a very young cat so that it hadn't had the chance to acclimate to the outdoors. It was winter when we began to pursue this avenue. Here, cats are not born year round, they are mostly born in the spring/summer months. This is a strange phenomenon, because cats are somewhat unique in that mating stimulates ovulation, so normally they can get pregnant any time. Maybe they are outdoors less in the cold months. Don't know. It is also said that the kittens that are born in the winter aren't as strong and healthy and we were discouraged from trying to adopt or find one during the winter.
So we waited. Spring came and our dear colleagues began to check the newspaper ads for us and listen to information from friends. We were looking for a girl, a young kitten, one that had been raised in a family so that it was handled by humans and acclimated. The latter was extremely important or the cat would never bond with us. Finally we heard of a litter of kittens born on a farm to some friends of our colleagues, Ted and Dawn.
Dawn took me out to see them when they were about three weeks old. There were four of them. I had in my mind that I would really love a gray tabby cat with white on its chest and face. For some reason they didn't have that exact model :-) They did have a beautiful kitten that was white all over with blue eyes, a black and white kitten and two brown tabbies. I immediately sparked to the white one. After seeing the kittens, who were too young to take home at that time and even too small to accurately sex them, Jon and I headed home to wait. In the meantime we had a two week trip to Turkey, Croatia and some southern European countries. We enjoyed our time away and came back eager to see the kittens.
It turns out the beautiful white one was the only male in the bunch. All the kittens were a bit skiddish, but one seemed to warm up a bit more than the others, so we chose her. We are still working on a name as none comes to mind immediately. She is now beginning her third day with us. She has adapted amazingly from a box of straw in the barn to our home and to us. She was litter-boxed trained within a couple of hours. Within an hour and half she went from being not too sure about me to sleeping in my lap. She cried the first night when we put her in the bathroom to sleep, even though we left a nice box with a towel, a little stuffed animal for a friend and a ticking clock. Last night - nary a peep. By the morning of her second day with us she had given me some head-lovin' and I'd heard her purr, so I knew she was settling in very well. She eats well, but misses her Momma.
Every so often, usually when she is getting sleepy, she cuddles up to some soft fleshy part of me (not hard to find) and starts nuzzling around. Sometimes she licks and "tastes" my fingertips. It is a little pitiful. She is still just a tiny little baby. She can sit in the palm of my hand. (She looks bigger in this photo than she actually is.)
She is very energetic and playful when she's awake, but like any young baby she also sleeps a lot. She enjoys having her tummy rubbed and she lets me handle her feet (important for claw clipping later). She seems to have decided Jon and I are safe and she likes to interact with us. I think she is going to be a very sweet cat. It has been nearly five years since we have had a pet in our home. I didn't realize it had been so long until I actually calculated it. What is more amazing is that an indoor cat lives an average of twenty years. I could very well be seventy before this cat leaves us. Hard to comprehend!
