Bootsie

Bootsie's Human writes:

Bootsie, a wonderfully intelligent and loving tabby, was rescued as a tiny starving kitten. He was a bundle of skin and bones, a skinny body attached to an enormous head, when my daughter heard him crying on the step of a recently vacated rental home in our neighborhood. He wouldn't come when we called, so we moistened a handful of dry food and left it on the driveway for him. He gobbled it only when we were a safe distance away.

After several days of crying on the doorstep of an empty house, the little kitten finally found his way to the source of the food. He still wouldn't let anyone come near him, but he would eat if we set the food in our driveway. (We think that he had been abandoned far away by the recently departed neighbors, and that by the time he had struggled home, they had left.) He gradually was able to eat while I or my daughter knelt by him and spoke to him. Finally, on a cold October morning, he charmed my husband into opening the kitchen door and letting him in. It was nearly two months after we had first heard his desperate cries for help that Bootsie became a member of the family. He chose us; we didn't pick him.

Bootsie has enjoyed almost a dozen years with us now.
(Jan. 1, 1997)

Rossini

Rossini's Human writes:

Rossini, a silky gray kitty with a bit of Persian in her somewhere, also chose to join our home. She turned up at the front door of the school where I teach, begging scraps from the students as they passed in and out of the school. She wore tags, but telephone calls revealed that her original owner had passed her on to a friend, who had given her to another friend, who had given her to someone who had a dog. We think that the dog was just too much for a self-respecting cat to accept in the way of a roommate, so this resourceful kitty took her fate into her own paws and ran away. She had been declawed, so she couldn't hunt, and she was wise enough to head to a place where there were lots of humans to charm. She entered our household on a freezing Thanksgiving weekend, when my daughter said "You can't just leave the kitty to die, Mom."

Rossini has been wise enough to accept Bootsie as Head Cat in the household. We haven't figured out if she's really a featherbrain about things like getting stuck in the closet, or whether she just makes Bootsie feel good about getting her out.

Rossini has been with us about five years.
(Jan. 1, 1997)