June is Adopt A Cat Month. I’m proud to say my mom has been adopting felines for over thirty years, some as kittens, some as adults. My current set of cats, cat bro Bert and kitty sis Sophie would be lost without us dogs around, I’m sure of that! Every cat deserves a home with dogs, so please consider adopting! We always try to have at least two of each species, so no one is lonely. What I’m saying is, why not just adopt two cats?
I never met many of the cats Mom adopted, so I will just talk about the ones I have known over my nine years on this planet. Don’t panic, the huge black cat on the far right is actually a dog! Trine was also adopted by Mom when she was about sixteen months old, and moved to Germany with the family around age five. Her job was to wrangle these three German cats, L=>R, Boo, Tom, and Biene.
Boo was our heart cat. She was the first German cat Mom adopted back in 1999. She was always full of mischief, loved dogs, and was just an awesome kitty. The photos of the German cats aren’t the best as they were taken with one of the first digital cameras.
Biene was the second German kitty. She was beautiful, but had been abused as a young kitten and was afraid of almost everything in life. Her existence was sad as she never really trusted anyone.
Boo and Biene were close in age. The two grew up together, and Boo was the only one who could pull Biene out of her shell and get her to do things. They were awesome together. Both Boo and Biene moved with us to the US in July 2007. Sadly, Boo suddenly passed away in October 2007 at only eight years old. Biene was never the same again, and pretty much went into hiding for the rest of her life until she passed away from cancer in 2011.
Tom was our third German cat. He was always rather sickly, and had to be allowed outdoors or he would make messes in the house. Mom adopted him when he was about six months old. He is on the right in the photo. He moved to the US in January 2008 and was in shock over the snow and cold! Once it warmed up, he demanded to go out but always stuck close to home. One night in September that year, he went out and never was seen again. It still haunts us as we don’t know what happened to him. Katie, Mom, and I looked all over for him for weeks but never found even a clue.
In 2008 Biene was in hiding all the time, so Mom decided to get a new cat at the Humane Society. She chose the beautiful, yet shy, Sophie. Her hope was she would help Biene feel more at home. Sophie was thought to be around a year old at the time.
Of course, Mom couldn’t stop at just one cat. Bert (at the time named of all things, Pickles) pulled the wool over her eyes and got himself adopted along with Sophie. The Humane Society thought he was about three years old. He wasted no time putting his paws up, and making himself right at home!
Bert and Sophie don’t do a lot of things together, but they are found occasionally hanging out for bird watching.
As you know, cat bro Bert feels like he really is a dog, so I don’t mind showing him he is not sometimes.
There is nothing better than a tight knit family made up of dogs and cats. Do your pup a favor and adopt them a cat to hang out with and play with. The cat will also be very appreciative of the opportunity to live with a dog! Sophie is still learning to love us dogs, which is why she is not lying with us in front of the fireplace, but it’s only been seven years…she just needs more time. Trust me! Do you have cats and do they enjoy living with dogs?
I would LOVE to be able to adopt another cat, but when I was diagnosed with asthma, I also found out that I am allergic to cats and sadly, I had to leave my two cats with my ex-husband. I missed them terribly. I agree that it is best to have two dogs though…as Chloe and LadyBug depend on each other for companionship and they wouldn’t know what to do if they were left alone!! What beautiful cats you have had over the years!
My mom has had cat allergies her whole life, but she has always had cats. As long as the fur doesn’t get in her eyes she is okay. Too bad you have asthma as well and can’t have any cats. At least you have the dogs!
The two dogs are all I can handle.
Cats are pretty self sufficient, so they are much easier than dogs according to mom.
This is true but I wasn’t referring to just the physical and emotional aspect.
Emma you have the bestest furmily… I love it!!!! Sadly we can’t have a cat, but if then we would have one like Grumpy or Maurice Boscarelly (mom’s cat hero). It was great to walk the path of memories with you, even when we cried for Boo and Biene…. and we all hope that nice people found Tom and that no bad things happened to him…
We are pretty sure Tom was taken by a fox or coyote as there are some around our area. Since he never went far from home and there was no trace of him anywhere, we have that feeling but we will never know. Too bad you don’t have a cat bro like my Bert. You two could do wonderful disaster things together.
I love to see one big happy family.
We are a big furry family and pretty happy too!
Excellent post! We do miss the two dogs that lived here and now are at the Bridge. they were very sweet.
That is nice to hear from the kitties. I know my cats would be lost without us dogs!
Purfect!
We love our feline furiends. In the last couple years we lost most of my feline siblings. Pop (adopted from a shelter) who I will always love & remember (he would sleep on my head) left us suddenly likely do to age & underlying health issue we could never ascertain.
Jazz was a street cat who had been rescued by a furiend before coming to live with me. She passed from old age.
Puff went out to play with his next door neighbor feline furiend & never came back. They both went missing. We still think about him with love always.
We lost our Queen feline Miss Missy in the house fire last April. Her loss breaks our heart every day.
Dot Dot went missing for 19 days after the fire but fortunately we found her hanging out with the pigbros.
She is now an inside cat. Dot & her 3 other siblings had been left behind when her family moved away. My huMom found homes for 2 & kept Puff & Dot.
We talk about adopting another feline; a big old tom but will wait until we have our home re-built and are settled again.
Nose nudges
Olivia
My mom loves the Main Coon cats but we don’t need another cat right now and then we would want to find one as a rescue.
Yes, definitely would want to rescue. My huMom says kitties often come to us; we don’t always need to go to them.
We never see stray kitties around our area and that is a good thing. If we had stray kitties, Mom would take them all in.
You’re so lucky to live with kitties, Emma. Mommy rather doubts that a kitty would want to live with us. 😉
Sophie is still learning to love dogs, but as I mentioned, it’s only been about seven years, so she needs time. Bert wouldn’t know how to function without us. He loves all three of us.
Sure are beautiful furry kids. We don’t understand how people could abuse pets
Lily & Edward
We can’t imagine that at all. It is just sick. We are all lucky to have great families.
We don’t have any cats and doubt that we ever will. Mom loves them but after having her Miss Gitty for 20+ years, she can’t share her heart with another. The fact that Pierre & I are not feline fans doesn’t help either. I do think Bro Bert is cool. ☺
I bet you boys would love a cat if it was like Bert. We know people who lost their heart dog and now only have cats, but your the first case we know of where there is no more cat, just dogs. Truly, cats are fun, but they can be a real pain in the furs too.
I LOVE this post and I LOVE that your Mom has been adopting kitties for so long! What rock have I been living under that this was the first I ever heard of Sophie??? What??? DakotasDen
No worries. Sophie kind of lives under a rock. She lies around looking pretty, but hides when anyone comes over, has no interest in being a photo model and still doesn’t like dogs much. Mom has adopted ten cats so far in her life, some have been better than others, but she will continue to get kitties from the Humane Society or a rescue.
What a great blended family you have now, and have had in the past! Biene makes me think of our Conrad, scared of everything, and who was never quite the same after our cat Katie died. He did at least start hanging out with us when he got old though.
Samantha would say that she tolerates the dogs, though I don’t think she’d go so far as to say she loved them! She’s always been pretty much a loner though, even when we had other cats.
You need a Bert in the family to liven things up. Luke and Bert would make an excellent team of destruction!
We luv our dog sisfur! Right now it’s just Finley, but we’s sposed to get puppies next month!
I love to hear about other homes where cats and dogs are good buddies!
Growing up in the country people were always dropping off cats. We took them to the vet for checkup and vaccines. We have adopted 3 in the last 25 years. Dusty (beautiful Persian and outdoor mix) he loved all our dogs and lived to be 18, Jade our white cat with beautiful green eyes was sick and frightened so we brought her in and took care of her. Our now cat Minx, black Angora we adopted at 2 yes. She was into everything thus her name, is living with us and loves to be with Mica.
Some kitties love dogs more than others, but we all seem to enjoy each other once the kitties get over their fears of dogs. Cat bro Bert is into everything. He makes my mom crazy, but she does love him and we have a lot of fun with him.
With 2 long haired dogs that she’d tremendous amounts of hair, and a long haired cat who also sheds constantly we can’t take anymore hair;)
Our short hair cat sheds so much more than the long hair one. We have enough fur here too!
I love kitties! I agree with you that it’s so much fun having a multi-species household. It’s pretty cool to see the dogs and kitties interacting and learning each other’s language. 😀
Everyone has their own personality, and we all learn to get along and adjust to each other. It makes life more fun.
Loved reading about all of your cat history! Mom agrees that you should always have cats and dogs together. Rhette is the perfect cat to put up with us two dogs. Even though I’ve been getting after Rhette if he tries to get close to mom when I’m there. He’s not afraid of me one bit we sleep close together in bed which makes no sense to mom. Love Dolly
Bailie and I have practically killed cat bro Bert on many occasions as he steals our food and treats, but he has no fear and keeps doing his stealing things. It makes life more fun!
Looks like the kitties are taking over both of our blogs! I loved reading about all your kitty siblings both now and in the past. I especially loved the story of Boo and Beine – though so sad that she went into hiding after Boo passed away.
Mom has had ten cats but Biene was the only one who never truly warmed up which was sad. She let Mom pet her and sometimes hold her, but that was it. At least she did have a nice home.
Hi, Kitties! I’m a kitty, too. Due to the fact I live in a one animal at a time apartment there is just me, Quinn. And before me there were a few others along the way. Mommy’s family had a nice doggie when she was growing up. It was sposed to be hers, but he claimed everyone in the family! Smart, right? Lots of treats from lots of peoples!
We do have lots of dogs here, so Mommy gets her “doggie fix” and she has a friend in the northern suburbs who has three dogs and one cat, and Maggie (her oldest dog) comes and visits and I think he thinks he’s a cat. The other two dogs are bigger! Now, that’s smart, too. He likes kitty treats AND doggie treats!
I do think cats and dogs can be happy living without each other, but when it is possible, it is more fun to live together. It’s amazing how much fun we have sometimes, and we provide comfort to each other too.
Unfortunately I’m terribly allergic to cats and cannot have them in my vicinity or else I’d be sneezing between slit eyes swollen shut. 🙁 Your cat & dog family looks precious.
Not everyone can be around cats, so we understand. My mom has cat allergies too but hers aren’t as severe.
She’s lucky!
Sophie looks a bit like a Nebelung..
And yes, I agree, every dog should have their own kitties 🙂
Wow! That is interesting! We’ve never heard of that breed before, but she does look like one! We got her when she was about a year old from the Humane Society and just always figured she was a long hair mix of some sort. Thanks for that tidbit!
Loved meeting your cats. I only have one cat and he’s the boss of the house. If I brought a dog home it would be really difficult.
Most of mom’s cats have either turned into dogs themselves, or bossed the dogs around. Only about two out of the ten haven’t cared much for the dogs.
I would love to adopt a cat. Ever since I started reading blog posts from people who had both cats and dogs in their homes I thought it would be fun HOWVER – if I brought a cat home I would loose a husband, so I can’t.
In Germany, Mom had a cat and a dog when she moved into her first place. Her neighbor was a total dog person and wanted no cats. The neighbor did watch Mom’s cat a few times that first year, and all of the sudden, she wanted a cat. Now, she is the crazy cat lady and has no more dogs! Too bad your husband doesn’t want a cat!
We adopted Nestle and one of her is definitely enough. lol I enjoyed learning about your other kitties.
You’re lucky having just one. Two makes for a lot more work it seems, but we do like our kitties.
My dogs don’t really mind cats…in the house. Although sometimes they do chase them, but when we had either of our daughter’s cats, the dogs would often times be caught next to the cat watching out the window.
Cats on a walk…now that’s a whole other story! It was nice to get to see the felines who have shared your life.
Cats outside the house are different and to be hunted in our book, but the ones in our house are special and we don’t hurt them ever.
Cats are wonderful