My Adorable, Sweet, Loveable Kitty!

Janie Isabella.... My Brown Tabby kitty love! Janie was rescued from a feral cat colony at the age of 3 weeks. She lived in a loving foster home and was bottle-fed every three hours. I am eternally grateful to her kind foster family. Because of this early, hands-on attention, Janie is sweet, loving, cuddly, and demonstrative. We adopted her when she was 8 weeks old. She weighed just under 2 pounds!

I surprised my, then 11 year old daughter with a trip to Pet Smart. I told her we needed to pick up supplies for our other pets, knowing that our local Feral Cat Rescue was showing cats for adoption. As I predicted, my daughter saw all the cats and kittens and ran to look at them, wishing and dreaming, (not even daring to hope) that she could have one.... (oh, man... this was fun!!!!) She had NO idea I was about to make her dream come true!

"Guess, what? You get to choose one. Right now." Her reaction was priceless and I will never forget it! "Mom, are you joking? Mom, really? Oh, Mom, is it O.K. with daddy." "Yes, daddy actually said yes!!! Surprise! That's why we're here!" It took her all of two seconds to choose. She pointed at this tiny, tiny tiger-striped ball of fluff that was pouncing wildly on a little crinkle ball. "She's the one! I want her. I love her. She's perfect!!!" I grabbed the busy representative of the rescue program in case someone else tried to adopt "our kitten," Wow! who knew that adopting a cat would be so difficult!? I figured we'd take her home, right then. NO- we had to fill out extensive paperwork, answering question after question about our home, our philosophy of pets, our reasons for wanting her, etc.... We were told that she was only about 7 weeks old, slightly under weight, and needed to get up to 2 pounds in order to be spayed, which had to be done before we could adopt her anyway!!!!!

They sent us home and told us someone would review our forms and call us back in a week or so to let us know if we were acceptable to be Janie's real family!!!! Seriously? My poor daughter was beside herself, imagining that her dream could be taken away so quickly. The very next day we got the call. We were accepted. Now, all we had to do was wait and wait for this tiny creature to gain weight so she could get spayed and come home with us! Janie took her time growing and we called daily. We passed the next week, in anticipation of the BIG day, with buying her gifts, and we also made her two, cozy polar fleece blankies; one for her little carrying cage and one to cover up with or snuggle on the sofa, etc.... We made them double-sided, pink and brown because we thought she would look extra pretty snuggling on those colors. :)

Finally, and completely against their policy, they let us take her home before she weighed 2 pounds. We had to promise and sign a statement that we would get her spayed as soon as she was the right weight. We also had to sign a contract stating that we would never have her de-clawed and she would be an INDOOR cat only! We signed and Janie was ours!!!!

That was six years ago and she is kitty purrr...fection!!!