Cats Herd You

Newton is enjoying time on his favorite ess scratcher. He is showing off his elegant frame for all to see, including his big, floofy tail.

First of all, we would like to thank everyone for all of their kind words and thoughts. Your messages were very heartfelt and were very much appreciated.

We also wanted to thank everyone for their advice on help with finding a friend for Cousin Earl. We contacted a few rescue organizations and ended up at the SPCA of Central Florida. There were a small handful of cats that were finalists in the running for Earl buddyhood, but one stood out above all of the rest:

We are pleased to introduce Cousin Shepherd as the newest member of our family. He was left at the shelter because his previous peeps were moving and couldn’t take him with them. His favorite hobbies are looking out windows and inadvertently scaring Cousin Earl.

Cousin Shepherd has already won the hearts of his new V.E.T. and pretty much every other peep he has come in contact with. He seems to be quite intelligent and can’t wait for Earl to warm up to him so they can be pals.

Our grandpeep died yesterday. We haven’t talked much about her here on the blog, but she was a real animal lover. She wanted to be a veterinarian, but there wasn’t money for it when she was in college. Instead, she raised her daughters, who run this blog, to love animals by always adopting cats and dogs. She was known at her veterinarian’s office as the woman who adopted several special needs animals like Cousin Earl, who looked like this when she adopted him:

Our grandpeep used to hint around about wanting grandchildren the way that grandpeeps often do. Instead, she ended up with grandcats, and all of you know her grandcats from reading about us here. We never would have had this great forever home if it wasn’t for the example that our grandpeep set for animal adoption.

So if you notice we aren’t blogging or commenting quite as regularly as usual for a while, we’ll be back.

That’s the sad part of our post. Now about those days ahead…

When our grandpeep came to live with our aunt, she brought Cousins Nellie and Earl with her. Cousin Nellie is an angel now, and the past several months while our grandpeep was in the nursing home have been lonely for Cousin Earl. Cousin Earl spent the first few years after our grandpeep adopted him at home with another cat, a dog, and a retiree who was home all day. He wasn’t used to being alone during the workweek.

Cousin Earl is a shy guy, and moving him from our aunt’s house to live with the three of us might be too much for him. But now that our aunt isn’t going to be spending so much time at the nursing home, it’s time for Cousin Earl to find a cat buddy to keep him company.

What kind of cat buddy would Cousin Earl like? One who likes other cats, obviously, preferably a playful one who would enjoy playing hide and seek with Cousin Earl while our aunt is at work during the day. A cat who plays aggressively might not be a good fit, since Cousin Earl is kind of a scaredy cat. He doesn’t have a gender preference, but he doesn’t really want to have to teach manners or litterbox habits to a kitten. Cousin Earl lives exclusively indoors, and so will his buddy. Hopefully his buddy will be photogenic (aren’t all cats?) because he or she will be seen all over the world via the blogosphere, but preferably his new friend will be short-haired. Cousin Earl doesn’t want to have to give up all of his brushing time to a long-haired diva.

We and Cousin Earl are in central Florida, so if you happen to know of any potential good matches for cat buddyhood in the region, let us know in the comments or through the contact form on our about page.

Cousin Earl can’t wait to see what kind of buddy we find for him.

Once upon a time in 2005, there was a litter of cats born under a tarp that covered a boat that was on a trailer. The boat’s owner didn’t know about the kittens, and moved the trailer. By the time the boat’s owner found the kittens, the mother cat was nowhere to be found, and the kittens went to a local rescue group. They all got nautical names, and when they were old enough, they went to PetSmart for an adoption event.

A little gray kitten, named Pier, was looking out of the cage at PetSmart and his eyes locked with the head peep’s eyes, and it was love at first sight. There hadn’t been any plans to get a kitten right now, but little Pier came home anyhow, and was renamed Pierre.

He was kind of a timid little guy and spent a lot of his first week under the sofa, but quickly learned to come out for food and playtime.

(He still plays with that Christmas mouse to this day!)

And pretty soon he was hanging out on the bed like a big kid.

And of course showing off his spectacular kitten tummy.

He quickly showed a special talent for getting inside things.

Including getting into trouble.

He started to grow up, but he didn’t grow out of that tummy exhibitionism.

Or grow out of getting inside things.

Really, really inside things.

And under things, too.

He also learned to relax in front of the TV like a proper mancat.

And if you’re really lucky, he’ll flash you that tummy.

So happy 8th gotcha day, Pierre!

He’s glad to share this day with all of his friends around the blogosphere.