The Circumstances of My Conversion

I was a bona-fide Cat Person for 22 years. My mother, you see, is possibly the world’s most ardent cat lover. She was kind of a Cesar Millan for felines: she could pet even the most ornery of them. From the time I was brought home from the hospital, there were cats in our house. Auto and Marcel were my mother’s. Then the day came for me to pick out a cat of my very own, and I chose Whiskers, who unfortunately turned out to be crotchety, antisocial, and violently unreceptive to my attempts to clothe her. My mother abides by the old adage, “cats are like potato chips: you can never have just one.” So the list of family felines continued through the years: Puppet, Stella, Gizmo, Pearl, Twinkie, Smokie, Flip, Vader, Ossie, Totoro, Petey, and Falcor.

Falcor in his beer hut

In addition to loving cats, my mother mostly disliked and feared dogs and passed these traits on to her three children.  If a dog came into the yard (with the exception of Annie, our neighbor’s elderly lab mix), we were all to come inside immediately and bring as many cats as possible.

List of Reasons Not to Like Dogs

• They chase cats
• They don’t cover up their poop
• They bark
• They stink
• They slobber
• They will chase you
• If they catch you, they will probably bite you

In college, I met Brian. He was perfect: sexy, intelligent, and sweet in that “my mama raised a gentleman” way. Too bad I already had a decidely imperfect boyfriend. I consoled myself with the fact that it would never have worked between us anyway, because Brian was very allergic to cats.

About a year later, when I was between cats and minus the idiot boyfriend, I ran into Brian again. This time the sparks were undeniable, and we fell into a relationship so wonderful, I found myself willing to swear off cats for good. When we got married in December of 2008, I knew I was resigning myself to a life without furry felines, but I’d be damned if I would be petless for long.

Embarking on a cat-free life together

I had gone through a brief rodent phase in college. Fidget the hamster and Scuzzlebutt the guinea pig had convinced me that tiny furry things were not the pets for me.  Brian, preferring the most low-maintenance end of the pet spectrum, had several fish. I argued that fish were not pets, they were decorations.  Brian wouldn’t let me have a possum. What did that leave but a dog? Could I really overcome years of prejudice and embrace the idea of canine ownership? Faced with the realization that it was that or spend the rest of my days critterless, I started up a campaign of annoying Brian into agreeing that we needed a puppy.

After getting Brian on the puppy train and obtaining permission from the landlady, I brought home Mocha.

[For more on her back story and for info on adopting one of her siblings, see the FreeChessieLabs site.]

Mocha snoozing the day we brought her home