So… Saturday, after a very pleasant session, I pulled into the Kroger at Buffalo Speedway and Westpark for necessities, and got tagged by a little sign: “Weekend Cat Adoptions.”
Now as it happens I am, at the moment, between owners, and of late that’s been bothering me somewhat,so it seemed that it might be worth stopping in to see if by some chance there was a minor deity in the market for a trained, experienced, and motivated chief of staff. Or, at the very least, a blog post.
Well. I got the blog post, anyway.
The adoption center, one of the small retail outlets on the north (Westpark) side of the center, is operated by Save A Cat Rescue, Inc. Unfortunately their website seems to be a bit uncertain just at the moment so I’m not going to link now. There will be more opportunities for linkage later, I expect, as I really LIKE these folks… They’re devoted servants, volunteers, and understand the importance of letting the fuzzy ones decide who they do and don’t want to consider taking on as permanent staff. Nobody even looked at me funny when I said I was just giving the cats the opportunity to consider me, which is to me a VERY good sign. (I’ve been to any number of shelters where the volunteers just don’t get it — they think the relationship choice is up to the humans. So I wasn’t expecting much and was pleasantly surprised.)
There were cats there who were residents of the shelter’s group home (I’m not gonna call it a cathouse, I’m not, I’m not…) and others who are currently foster kitties. Without exception they all appeared to be healthy, well-cared for, and reasonably well socialized given that they are, after all, “homeless,” and are being subjected to the attentions of any number of strange humans and exposed to other cats, many of whom they probably don’t know. (This is always a stressful situation for cats, and a few of them did show signs that they were not exactly thrilled to be there…. but even the bad tempers were well within normal for the situation.)
After a few minutes of being present, it seemed unlikely that I was going to be adopted that particular morning, so I got to work.
This is Einstein. Allegedly, when he was a youngster, he had very little body coat but a significant if somewhat disreputable and disheveled ruff, and looked very much like early photographs of the good Doctor. He’s grown into one of the most handsome guys I’ve seen in years, a Maine Coon / Tuxedo mix, about 8 months old and extremely dignified.
(He is also, at the moment, clickable. There are more cats behind him. Go look.)
Not supposed to rain tomorrow. Hit the streets.