Introducing Sable

This is the second in a series of entries that will eventually introduce all five of my cats. Yes, I have five of them. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the four legged critters.

Sable is at least a year old, but she looks like she's about six or eight months old because she is very tiny. She was a stray, probably a barn cat from down the road who walked up the street and ended up at my house. I saw her outside a few times from the window, mostly when one of my other cats, Gracie, would go running from one window to another with her eyes all wide at the sight of this interloper in our front yard. She'd never let me near her outside, though. I started putting food out for her, because I felt so bad for her! The poor little homeless thing.

Then I started getting possums on my front porch, because they were drawn by the cat food, and I hadn't seen Sable hanging around lately, so I stopped putting food out. And then when it snowed again a few weeks later, there were tiny little cat prints in the snow, and I felt so horrible! I immediately over compensated by putting too much food out. Like I said, I'm a sucker for the four legged critters.

This went on for most of the winter, and then my dog Bailey started acting very strange - I thought she was losing her mind. She started going to the basement door and whining and basically acting obsessed with the fact that this door MUST BE OPENED RIGHT NOW! So eventually I said, okay Bailey, if it will calm you down, I'll open the door and show you that there's nothing on the other side of it. And what do you know? Sable was on the other side. She had found her way into the basement.

Long story short (is it too late for that?), I started making friends with her by holding the basement door open and getting on the floor to talk to her while she stayed on the steps. I fed her treats, which she gobbled up, and became convinced that my basement kitty (because you know she was already going to be mine - there was absolutely no doubt) could be tamed. So one day I opened the door and walked away, and just let her walk in. She freaked out a lot at first, and after I took her to the vet and got her tested for diseases and given her shots and spayed, I brought her home and let her acclimate to indoor life in the spare room. It took a few months to calm her down and adjust everyone, but before long she was part of the household. Shy at first, she has turned into a real snuggler - almost as much as Zelda.

She's little and cute and soft and loves to be petted and loves to purr in my ear and I'm so glad she showed up in my basement, and so glad that Bailey was still here at the time to let me know that she was in the basement. And I think she's loving being inside this winter, instead of outside in the cold!