Smokey has gone to a better place

In my last post, I introduced you to Smokey.

Now, before any readers who may be animal lovers get distressed, please be assured: Smokey is still "with us"... that is, he has not crossed over the rainbow bridge, kicked the bucket, met his fate, expired or achieved ambient temperature (that last one is a favorite at our house!) Here's what happened between my last blog (Saturday, Nov 14., and today Sunday, Nov. 15)

Jennifer has been watching the seven day weather forecast for the past few days, and last night noticed that snow is predicted for Friday of the coming week. She was concerned for Smokey, and accordingly tasked Mr. T with finding a nearby shelter where we could take him.

I should probably give a bit of background about "pet" animals in the United States.

This may seem a bit puzzling to those readers outside of North America, Europe and Australia, but we keep small (or sometimes, not so small) animals for pets. Be they cats, dogs, fish, birds, snakes (yuck), spiders (double-yuck!) or critters even more esoteric, we welcome them into our homes and adopt them as a part of the family. We love them. The livestock, in return, provide certain benefits to us.

Reptiles entertain- I suppose. I've never owned one of these, but some of them seem to have a universal "cool" factor- turtles, for example. Gerbils, chinchillas, ferrets and other rodents also tend to be popular with some folks. Fish are quite fun, generally pretty low maintenance and inexpensive. One typically does not develop much of an attachment to fish... they're almost biological art. I could stare at them for hours.

Larger animals- cattle- can also be pets. Jennifer's niece Paige was quite attached to a horse, and my cousin Lynda loved a bull that her family had raised for food.

There are others, but typically in the United States when one is talking about pets, one is usually talking about dogs and cats.

I can't speak for anywhere else, but here in the United States dogs and cats are LOVED. Pet owners treat their "furbabies" as they might treat biological children, and the most extreme ones will even put these critters into their will! Now, having been a pet owner for some time, I have to agree that a certain amount of bounding and love does occur between pet and pet parent. A certain amount of trust must be established. And, like children, not all animals are going to have the same personality, level of trust or personality.

Our own personal experience. A truism about cats which we lived out: a shelter from which we've adopted three of our four cats from, Furkeeps, had posted a picture of a beautiful pair of cats who were brothers (Cheech and Chong). We thought they would be a perfect addition to Schwarz and Tinka, but these two poor felines wanted nothing to do with us- they even hissed at us! We, of course, were quite disappointed: not only had we driven some distance to see these critters, but a lady from the shelter had agreed to meet us on her day off. The story ends well for everyone, though: we got Kenji (top photo) and Kaley (bottom photo) that day. Total opposites, but totally made for each other. In the small confines of their shelter environment, Kaley seemed to target Kenji. Kaley was a free spirit and Kenji was reserved; when we had them out of their caged environment, they were nice to us and each other, so we adopted them as a pair- and they've done quite well together.

Smokey, though....

As I had mentioned, Smokey is young- technically still a kitten. The weather reports indicate that we will get a cold snap by the end of the week, so we decided that it would be best to get Smokey in shelter. We could not take him, as we didn't want to expose our other four cats to any potential diseases. Mr. T was tasked with finding a shelter, and he came through. Buddy Rescue was the group he found.

There is a funny ending to Smokey's story.

We own a Subaru Outback. Subaru is somewhat famous among car brands in their support of pets. When we pulled up to The Buddy Foundation, there was a single car parked in the street- it was a Subaru.

I'm hoping that Smokey didn't contract some horrid feline disease while he was abandoned. I'm hoping he has a clean bill of health and will be adopted by a loving family.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.