To have and to hold

It was my precious day off and I was eating lunch at my favorite hangout, the Panera down the street. I happily sipped my hazelnut coffee and watched people walking their dogs around my neighborhood past the giant Panera windows.

I'd gotten used to playing with animals all day long at my new job and forgot how much I enjoyed it. It had been less than 24 hours but I felt like I was going through animal-withdrawal. And then it came to me.

"Gabe, why don't we go to the SPCA for fun today? You know, play with puppies and kittens. That sort of thing."

It was the perfect and least creepy and expensive way to play with some animals. Plus, I'd been meaning to visit the local SPCA just to check it out since a lot of my patients come from there.

Gabe finally gave in. "Sure . . . but we're NOT adopting ANYTHING."
"Yeah, yeah. Nothing. I just want to play with some puppies. Nice relaxing Sunday afternoon thing to do."
"Fine. But NOTHING. We're NOT adopting a pet."

We looked up how to get there and before long, we were strolling from cage to cage filled with adorable puppies and mutts.



Gabe was more interested in the dogs and we asked to take one of them, a basset-husky cross (I don't even want to think about how that got made), out for a walk.

The dog seemed distracted but playful and gamely chased a frisbee around the run. We played with him for about 10 minutes then returned him to his run. The volunteer was telling us that the dog had been in the shelter for a month but no one seemed interested in him. I felt bad, but neither were we. There was no chemistry there and it felt like the Kids in the the Hall sketch, "The dog for whom I feel nothing."


Disheartened, we toured the puppy room and watched a few adorable little pit-bull crosses paw at us through the bars of the cage and stick their noses out at us.

I got my fill of animals and soon enough, we decided to leave.

Gabe was feeling bad for the dog that we had played with and I was giving him my theory about how every animal in the world has that one owner they were meant to be with. It's a mix of chemistry, that strange animal-human connection, and fate. Unfortunately, we just weren't meant for that dog but somewhere out there, I felt certain there was someone who would love that dog the moment they met it.

We were walking out of the building when I noticed the cat room. Since we were there, I figured we should check it out too.


There were walls of cat kennels filled with cats of all shapes and sizes. Some rubbed against the bars of the cage or sat there on their haunches giving us cold stares as we wandered by. A large Maine Coon lay sprawled out in its cage and ignored us.

We turned around to leave when I heard an insistent, "MAOW!" from below.

I looked down to see a white and orange tabby meowing his little heart out at me.
"MRAOW. Mraow. Mraow. MRRAAOOOOW!" he said.
"Hey little guy. Is that a happy meow or a piss-off meow?"
"MRAOW," he replied and rubbed his head against the bars of the cage happily. I leaned down and patted his head. He leaned into my hand and turned around so my hand would stroke his back.

"He's cute," said Gabe.
I agreed and got up to leave again.

"MRAOW!"

I turned around for one last look. The cat had his arm stretched out as far as he could through the bars of the cage and reached out desperately to Gabe's pant-leg. "Mrrraow!"

"He seems to like you guys," said one of the volunteers in the room, "you could take him out for a visit in our playroom if you like."

I looked at Gabe and he looked at me. We shrugged.
"Sure. Why not? Can't hurt right?"

We were hustled into the playroom and the volunteer joined us a few moments later with the orange and white fur-ball in her arms, which she deposited in the corner of the room. It immediately unfurled and wide-eyed with curiosity, began sniffing and wandering around the room. The room was really more of a glorified closet with a large window, two chairs and colorful cat toys littering the floor.

The cat sniffed around until he came to the corner where Gabe and I were seated. He sniffed at our pants.
"Mraow?" he said and rubbed his cheek against my hand whilst simultaneously rubbing his back along Gabe's pants.

The volunteer wiggled a cat toy and he went bounding off but slipped on the freshly sanitized floor. He shook himself out and bounded after the toy again. Finally, after five minutes of play, he curled up in the corner of the room and looked up at us inquisitively as if to say, "Now what?"

I thanked the volunteer and asked some general questions so as to seem like we were actually going to adopt a pet.

"So can you put an animal that you are interested in adopting on hold?" I asked nonchalantly.
"Yes, but since we close in 10 minutes, if you want to put this guy on hold, you'd better hurry out there and start the paperwork! Here. Here's his cage card. You'll need that. Go!"

I grabbed the cage card and looked over at Gabe who was too busy playing with the cat again.
"Uh, Gabe, do you want to put him on hold?"

He was busy scratching the cat behind his ears and the cat was loving it. "He's really cute! He's so much more awesome than the dog we played with."

I could see the resolve in his eyes waning.
"Okay. Can't hurt right?"

We ran out to the front desk and were told that we had five minutes to fill out an application form. We filled it out and were told to sit down and wait for an adoption counselor to interview us.

"Gabe, you're not serious about this cat right?"
"Well, he seems to really like us. And we really like him. There's something there."
"Yeah, but I thought we weren't supposed to adopt anything today."
"We'll put him on hold and think about it for a few days."
"Sounds reasonable."

We were the last people of the day to be called up.
We approached the desk fully prepared to put the cat on hold and nothing more. The lady perked up when she realized I was a vet and rambled on and on. Apparently the cat was a stray that someone found and since they had too many pets in their home, they had to give him up to the SPCA. He had been there a few weeks and had just gotten neutered. They estimated him at around 1 year of age.

I hardened myself and told the adoption counselor that we just wanted to put the cat on hold so we could think about it some more.

We were told that an animal could only be on hold for 24 hours.
"Well, can't I call you back within 24 hours and then keep him here till my next day off when I can come pick him up?"
"No, you would have to pick him up in the next 24 hours."
"But we both work late tomorrow!"
"Well," said the counselor, "why don't you take him home now?"

We both looked up in shock. "NOW?!"
"Yeah!"
"But we don't have anything we need yet! I need at least a day to set up everything."
The lady shrugged, "What do you need? We send him home with a free bag of cat food so you'll just need a litter box and some litter which you can pick up from the Safeway on the way home."

Coincidentally, we had been planning to stop on the Safeway on the way back to get some groceries.

"I've already got his license ready for you," she said.

We looked at each other. This was surreal. We had started out the day not thinking about pets at all. And we had only gone to the SPCA to play with some dogs, and here we were, about to go home with a cat.

"I do really like him. I felt that connection," said Gabe.
I didn't want to admit it, but so had I. Of all those cats, he was the only one that had called and reached out to me both literally and figuratively.

One part of me was appalled at how slack the screening process was at the SPCA in terms of pet adoption. They were practically letting a total stranger with no proof of stability take home a poor animal within twenty minutes of her meeting him.

The other part of me realized that rather than having this poor cat forced on someone else, it was probably better for him to live with a vet and an anesthesia resident that seemingly was already under his spell.

"OK. We'll take him."

And with that, we somehow ended up with a cat.
He was brought out to us in one of those classy cardboard boxes with a handle on top and the holes punched in the sides. The guy that brought him out showed us the cat to make sure that we were getting the right one. An orange and white head poked out of the box, looked around and gave a loud, "MRAOW!" at me before getting pushed back down into the box.
"Yup, that's the one."

The adoption counselor congratulated us and warned us to keep him in a small confined area like the bathroom for at least 2-3 hours to let him settle down once we got him home.

We drove home with a few loud MRAOWs from the back and smuggled the cardboard box up to Gabe's apartment. We closed all the doors and hid all the bottle and cases from the counter before gathering around the box and finally opening it.

A curious white and orange head popped out of it.
"Mrrraow?" he said, then hopped out of the box and began exploring.

Within 10 minutes, he was adjusted and sniffing at the bottom of the door, eager to get to the other side.

We opened the door.

It took him another 10 minutes to explore the rest of the apartment and claim Gabe's computer chair as his own.


He also seemed to fall in love with the giant area rug in the living room and stretched himself out there.



I stretched out beside him and he began doing that kneading motion with his paws that all cats seem to do when they're immensely content and which I adore. (Somedays, I'm tempted to give cats opioids just so I can watch them do that!).

We ducked out to grab the litter and some groceries. Upon returning, he mewled at us until we set up the litter box at which point he promptly jumped in and relieved himself. He fastidiously buried his waste afterward at which point Gabe and I felt relieved too.

He seems to have settled in within a few hours and has taken to sitting on Gabe's textbooks and computer when he tries to study. He's also taken a fancy to my poor basil plant which we had to wrestle away from him. (Being the nerd I am, I looked it up and basil is not toxic to cats. As a side note, aloe vera IS toxic).

For the most part though, it's as if he's already a regular part of the apartment.
It feels like he's been here all along.

What can I say? There's a person out there for every animal. It's a mix of chemistry, that indescribable animal-human connection, and fate.

And I guess that today, this little kitty finally found his person.