My Story: How I became a CatCrazyWife
My family had cats when I was very young. My mom was partial to Siamese cats. I don’t remember them well, other than they were very pretty…and a couple of them were kind of mean. After her string of Siamese cats passed away, we went without cats for a long while. It wasn’t until I was a senior in high school that a cat came back into our home. He was an orange tabby we called Duke. He was so handsome, and a great listener. Duke was my best friend during my college visits home. Later there was Dudley, who was in a box of kittens someone was giving away in front of the grocery store one day. He was a gorgeous, gray, long-haired tabby with a personality that didn’t stop. Then there was Dani, a little black stray I found in a dumpster and took home…and convinced my dad to keep. He and Dani were inseparable and had their own little language. Even in Dad’s later years when dementia was ravaging his memories, he would talk about “Garbage”, his apt nickname for her given where she was found.
After college there was no time or place for pets in my life. Other than seeing Dudley and Dani during visits home, I was focused on starting a career and having fun. Fast forward to 1991. I married my husband, who promptly told me “no cats”. There was a story about being terrorized by a cat when he was a boy, or some sort of nonsense, but I agreed. To be honest, as much as I loved our family cats growing up, I told myself that without cats I didn’t have to worry about having hair on my clothes or dealing with litter boxes. I was okay with it. We eventually got a dog, then our daughters came along and we ended up with two dogs, and the various hamsters, rats and fish that come with having kids. It was a wonderful busy life. I didn’t really think about cats, although I did insist that one of our dogs be a small dog. I had a vision of a little lap dog that would lay on my lap in the evenings, and ride in the basket of my bicycle. That vision backfired…as Holly was too chunky to ride in my basket and when she would sit on my lap, she would lick me incessantly. She didn’t know how to relax.
In 2017, we moved from our suburban neighborhood to a small rural property where we founded and now run a nonprofit, Allegiance Ranch and Equine Rescue. Our focus was helping horses and heroes, but it wasn’t long before a cat found me…and changed my life for the better.
Meet Charley (aka Chicken)
It was our first winter at the ranch. Days were busy between work, family life, and caring for the rescue horses. As much as I loved the life we created and our work with the horses, I was feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed. Most days I couldn’t seem to shake a lingering feeling of gloom. One frigid evening (temperatures in the single digits), I thought I heard a cat crying in our garage. I opened the door to the garage to look but saw and heard nothing. I went back to whatever I was doing, but I kept hearing that plaintive wail of a cat. My husband later told me that he heard it too, but ignored it hoping I wouldn’t hear it. Ha, ha…his wishful thinking. After a few times of opening and closing the door, I finally opened the door to the cutest fuzzy face I’ve ever seen. She was a calico, rare in my experience, with long hair and very skinny. I immediately put out some food for her. She seemed friendly and unfazed by the attention. I posted her photo on Facebook in case someone recognized her; she had no collar. Despite the cold, she spent that first night in the garage in a pile of blankets.
The next morning I went to check on her. As soon as I opened the door, she ran into the house like a bullet and made herself at home. The two dogs didn’t phase her in the least. She walked in as if she owned the place. And she still does.