I have no idea if it was a no-kill shelter. I’m not sure no-kill shelters even existed in any significant number back then. So I just told myself that I was about to see a bunch of really cute kitties, most of which wouldn’t make it out of there. But mine would.
All the cats were sufficiently nice, and they generally displayed that survival reflex that makes them particularly adorable in such sad circumstances. I wanted to take them all, but I was only getting one, and there really wasn’t anything that made me want to take one over the others. I looked closely at one or two, but I still wasn’t certain.
Finally, I noticed the one cat who wasn’t making himself adorable. He just kept to himself in the back of his cage, uncertain, maybe even a bit fearful of getting noticed. He may well have been a feral someone picked up. Still he was tabby-ish, and mostly dark. I’d heard people gravitate towards lighter-colored cats. With his appearance and timid demeanor, I suddenly saw myself as this cat’s one chance to ever leave that shelter. So that’s how “this cat” became Nash, my kitty for 17 1/2 years.
Read the whole thing. Thank you Catie for turning me into a cat lover.
