How to Choose a Pet

As you will know if you’ve been thrilled by my blog before 🤣, we have had 14 cats, starting in 1984 with two. Our maximum number at once was 6. Current intake, 5. Hito is the oldest (13), but Miss Lily thinks she’s the head cat (1).

Embrace the magic

We have never chosen to go and adopt a cat. We know when we need go and look for a cat, it’s a pull that cannot be ignored. We walk into a rescue centre, and just know which cage to go to. This last time we knew that in a photograph of 6 kittens there was one in particular we were looking for.

As one kitten alone is asking for havoc it’s better to have a pair, once we find the one we’re seeking we call their companions the beautiful bonuses.

In my-world-speak its soul group. We all belong to a huge soul family in heaven, and our pets come from that family too. You’re literally looking for something you already know, just let your heart do the looking. However, searching from the heart applies whatever you believe.

You can’t explain it, it just happens. Even if this sounds weird to you, most people who have pets will tell you that there’s a connection as soon as you see them; just like human to human. If there’s a real connection the relationship will be successful. If we were ever called to get a dog then we would do so, but so far it’s always been cats. We were both raised with dogs, so it’s more that the dogs haven’t turned up than anything else.

When someone says they don’t like a particular coloured cat, we wonder what that has to do with anything. We’re looking for our cat not a photo opportunity. Black cats are allegedly difficult to photograph, by poor photographers, they are striking in the hands of those who know how to use a camera. Capture a black cat amongst tulips and you’ll win a photography prize.

You don’t have to seek any pet this way of course, it’s not a rule. However, if you’re struggling to know what to do, where to go (rescue centre always, no nasty health shocks for one), then waiting for that feeling, searching out rescue centres until one really calls to you, and wandering in with an empty head and an open heart, is a good way to go.

We always have to clarify

When we find the cat that feels like ours, we stand back and wait to see if that animal connects to us. We’re usually told off for this “They don’t have to show they like you, you know (you self-obsessed people)”. Some cattery staff have been quite nasty.

Actually we have 14 successful homings behind us and you do have to see that they’re comfortable with you. They have that right.

This doesn’t always mean that they’ll rush up and cuddle you, far from it. We went to a spectacular rescue centre when we found Mimzy and Lily, they let all 6 kittens out to play and we just sat quietly in their play room. Didn’t approach them unless they came to us.

Only two stayed in to play near us, completely ignoring us unless we picked up a toy to dangle, but they were very comfortable in our presence. Fortunately it was the two we wanted. Had they showed discomfort around us then we would not have forced ourselves on them. I am so grateful they were quite happy though.

If you take your time with any pet, and accept its right to choose you too, you are in for a lifetime of happiness. Sadly only their length lifetime which brings me to the scary bit.

Scared of the end?

We all are. It’s brutal. Out of 9 we’ve had to make the decision 8 times, and no the sudden passing wasn’t any easier. Some owners leave them at the vets because they can’t bear it, no matter what it does to you they don’t deserve that unless there’s no choice because you can’t get there. If they’re suffering the vet has to put them first. You will never regret staying with them, it’s actually over surprisingly quickly, we’re talking seconds.

It will hurt, but they will be your best memories and they’re worth every moment. Would I be sane without my cats? I don’t think so. I owe them everything. The years you do have them make everything worthwhile. You’ll smile everyday they’re with you, and when you’re accustomed to being without them, they will be your best memories that will still make you smile everyday.

Ending on a high note

All our cats have appeared in strange ways.

I was terrified of cats after a childhood incident, but suddenly I declared that I had to have two kittens. I picked their names. I found them at the local RSPCA, booked to see them. We said yes almost immediately, and I commented their names would be Gingernut and Marbles.

The lady looked at her husband and said, “What did I say this morning? Her colouring looks like marbles and he’s a ginger nutcase.”

Each story has its oddity, from knowing when to visit a rescue centre, to walking up the cages and seeing a brown tabby back through frosted glass and thinking “That’s my cat.” Not that’s the cat I want, he’s mine.

Bruno was 8, depressed, bloated, hadn’t eaten for a month. He was basically choosing to die. We couldn’t even get him to lift his head, so when we took him home we didn’t even know what he looked like. He was the most handsome, kindest, gentlest, funniest cat. We absolutely adored him. It was a different kind of privilege and joy adopting an 8-year-old who really needed you, and just as worthwhile.

When I lost Geris I kept feeling as if he was trying to climb on my shoulder, which he had never done. When we first met Daisy she suddenly stood on her back legs and put both front paws on my shoulder, the lady at the rescue thought she was going to climb up. She never, ever, did that again. But I knew!

When we lost Marby we decided to look for a mother cat and kitten, and the first pair we saw fitted the bill. The kitten even had the same coat as Marby, thick and like silk. Both gorgeous, both no.

Ten steps further on I found Elly and Jo-Jo, this time they’d only arrived an hour before we went to the rescue centre, they weren’t even released for homing. I took one look at Elly and knew she had to come home, she was already mine. Jo-Jo was the beautiful bonus this time.

This story didn’t end there though because we found the mother cat. Cloppy had recently had kittens, just been spayed, her eyes were running and she was utterly and completely depressed. Whilst I admired Elly and Jo-Jo, Tony felt compelled to keep looking, and he found Cloppy. He came running back saying he’d found the most beautiful chocolate brown Siamese, that she was not at the time, but as she struck him that hard there was only one answer, she could be the mother cat. She was brilliant.

Charlie was an interesting one. I was looking on line with the idea of helping out at a rescue centre, saw his picture, showed it to Tony, and he said go and look at him tomorrow. No hesitation. I went to the hairdressers, was driving back via the rescue centre, and somehow just knew exactly how to get to where he was. To the point I knew that the farm gate would be just around the next bend on the right. I took Tony to see him the next morning, and the lady delivered him that afternoon. She was about to stop being a rescuer for personal reasons.

If you follow your heart you may have to park the idea of a sweet and adorable cat. Charlie was a hissing, spitting, biting ball of fury. I’ve never seen a little guy so hurt as that cat. He particularly hated me. If I walked past him he would grab my hand and bit me, not hard enough to break the skin, but it became worrying. A few days later it became too much and Tony said he had to go. He went to find the number of a rescue we trusted, because there was no way Charlie was going back where he came from. I went into the lounge with him and said ‘What’s wrong with you? You are so wanted and so loved, tell me what to do!” Crazy I know, what was crazier was that the name Charlie shot out at me.

His name had been Jake. I asked him ‘are you Charlie?’ and he immediately stopped hissing and hopped towards me. He only had 3 legs and the cause of that was humans. Tony came in to look for me and I said ‘call Charlie’ he asked who Charlie was, I repeated ‘call him’, so Tony did and this adorable little kitten hopped up and gave him a fuss. It wasn’t all plain sailing from there, he took time and love, but oh he became so happy and was so worth it.

I knew I wasn’t crazy when a friend visited a few years later and said ‘Oh I had a cat exactly like him, his name was Jake.’ Charlie literally went for her and I had to grab him and take him outside. Whatever that rescue centre did, and it may have been keeping him in a low cage surrounded by newspapers so he couldn’t see who was coming, was it. She said he needed to feel safe, to feel safe cats have to see!

Amie came after Charlie, and they bonded immediately. Fairly similar in looks they could have come from the same litter. Amie arrived in an unusual way. A friend’s daughter let out an un-spayed cat and soon she was a grandmother. I told my friend I would not go to see them, but then Amie’s sister had something wrong, the daughter wouldn’t listen to mum, so I was wheeled in to say ‘get that kitten to a vet now her neck is dislocated’. The vet said that she would probably need a safe garden, both heads swivelled to me, because we’d fenced our garden in for Charlie.

I said I’d ask Tony, we went back to see her and for the first time ever an animal showed no interest in Tony at all, but Miss Amie walked straight into his heart. I was telling our cat sitter about it the next day (or warning her to be fair), and she said they’d love to go and see the kitten, and would be happy to fence their garden in. They’d recently lost a male cat in a hit and run, and the husband was desperate. I took them to see her, she climbed straight on his lap, laid upside down with her head hanging off his knees, all four legs akimbo, and he burst into tears. It was exactly as the lost cat use to lie on his lap. So that was another cat-coincidence.

Hito though takes the biscuit. I walked in, an hour after they were released from the nursery. I looked at the list of names and said “I’m here to see Mojo”, and if I don’t miss my mark, that’s him.” Three of the four kittens were absolutely identical, only Topper was decidedly smaller. I went back with Tony on the Saturday, he asked who we were there to see, I said Mojo and that’s him. I was right again. Tony said yes on the grounds that if I could pick him out of that line up twice, he had to be ours. He’s sitting at my side now.

Hito was the same with the name Mojo, would not answer it, would rather attack you. I said to Tony that we would add ‘JI’ to Mojo, making him a Mojito, and call him Hito. It worked again.

I actually wrote a long blog about these two. Again I arrived at the rescue centre an hour after they’d been released for homing. Again I knew they would be in the last cage. But the reason I was there was a very long story and plain weird. I will precis.

The previous December my friend The Spirit Artist painted a picture for me for Christmas. He warned me that it wasn’t a cat we had ever had. We were all baffled. In the January Charlie died suddenly and we were devastated. I thought I heard my Guide say ‘he’s coming back’ but I just thought ‘wishful thinking’.

One Friday evening I’m browsing on line and I see the cat that Luke had painted at a rescue centre. She was aged 9 and called Angel. Tony said to go and see her on the Monday. The next day we went to a very posh Outlet shopping centre in Oxfordshire. I was browsing in a shop I couldn’t afford when from behind me I heard clearly “find you mummy”. I turned around to find the voice. No mother seeking a child, no child crying for it’s mother, no one anywhere near me. It really shook me.

I called Tony and said that I really needed a coffee and a sit down. He said he was near my favourite shoe shop, L K Bennett. As I joined him I turned the corner and there in front of me was a Jimmy Choo shoe shop. Jimmy Choo was Charlie’s first name. I nearly fell over. Then in L K Bennett I bumped into a man carrying two Jimmy Choo shoe bags.

Long story short. Went to the Rescue, Angel was not interested. That’s when I started looking for what I now knew to be two kittens. When I got to the cage the lady told me who was in there, as I spoke the back cat flap from the outside area opened with a crash, this tiny kitten flew up to me, climbed on my shoulder, sat bolt upright and laid his head against my face. Exactly as Charlie used to sit. He has never done that again. When I took to see him on the Saturday, he did exactly the same thing to him, and has never done it again. We let Nero choose Marcus and he showed us clearly who he wanted to bring home with him. So we did. You’re never really in charge, but listening to them breeds success.

When we lost Amie it was my first time without a female cat, which was never going to work. I felt utterly lost in a family of four males. So off I went again, and this time it was horrible, but it’s also a very important story.

The rescue centre where we found Nero and Marcus were absolutely horrible to us. I had a very strange experience there which I can’t explain, but I realise now as I write, what it meant. The kitten you want isn’t here. I had stood in front of a cage looking at a kitten, asked to see it, and that kitten was not in that cage. I literally just twigged what happened, but at the time they were just horrible to us, taking my number, promising to call if they got girls in, then up they popped on the website and yet no call. I was so upset. Wish I’d understood at the time. Sigh.

Anyway, that’s when we saw a picture on another website and both instantly knew that the right kitten for us was in that picture, we both felt exactly the same one, and the rescue were amazing. I was the first to message, we were allowed a preview as I’d messaged so quickly. We were booked in for the first viewing. They’d paired Mimzy and Lily up, and it was just a delightful pairing. They’re happy beautiful girls and we’re so lucky.

Nini instantly took up the role of mother-cat, crying outside their room to be let in at night, fussing over them, herding them, checking on them, taking them out in the garden and running around after them. All the boys were amazing!

A long story for a reason

Choosing a pet is wonderful but it can also be difficult. Especially at first when you don’t really know what you’re doing. Above you have a range of shared experiences that might help a newbie feel a bit more relaxed and able to go with the flow. I do hope it’s helped.

With Charlie and Hito I hope their stories will give hope to those who may struggle to bond at first, if it’s your cat keep working it and it will work. As I said though, watch them, listen to them, they can’t speak so you have to interpret.

As I’ve been able to demonstrate, it’s not always an easy start, it’s not always the pretty little kitten you’re going to fall for, but if you follow your heart you will not go wrong.

Most importantly recognise that animals are souls too. They have emotions, they have hang ups, and they’re never owned by a true animal lover. We know it’s a relationship we’re blessed to have not an ownership situation. They deserve to be connected to you, to feel comfortable and happy with you. They do not deserve to be chosen for colour and shoe-horned into your life for pretty photo sessions.

If you treat them as equally valuable beings and get to know them, starting by following the vibe and finding the connection, you will have a blessing beyond price, you will smile and laugh every day, and will land up with some of the best memories that keep you smiling for decades. I lost Geris in 1999, I know. I miss every single one of them so much, but no matter what: they were still my kids and I’m the luckiest person on the planet.

That may sound a little dramatic, but it’s the right way to feel if you’re truly meant to have pets. Or as my mum used to say, ‘There’s your dad, then you two, then the dog, and there are times I like the dog best!’ They’re family.

Best love as always

Deb xx