Tell Me About It - Gilroy

It's another quasi holiday at Maddie's. Lots of activity, whole families visiting, kids dashing along the hallways in those shoes that light up, grown ups giggling like children at the cute cats.

The first guy to grab my attention is Boomer, who's newly arrived from Animal Care and Control. He's a vivacious long hair tabby with an unusually loud demanding meow. I imagine a sad story goes with him - although he's friendly, he's clearly upset and searching the hallway for someone who's not here. He lets me pet him but stays alert, yowling whenever someone enters the hall.

One cat meowing can have a domino effect, with anyone else prone to vocalizing pitching in, so between the cats and people it gets fairly noisy.

I help a mom and her daughter, who's a bit scared of cats. Can't tell her age, nine or ten maybe. Anyway, she's decided only one cat out of the whole shelter will do, a delicate little gray girl named Natasha. We all sit together and discuss cat body language and the meanings of tail movements.

Most other visitors decline help or make it clear they're not planning to adopt. So I go to visit another loud guy, Gilroy, who demands attention from everyone he sees. He's a ten year old mangy looking long hair, kind of smoky black, with battered looking ears and tail. Full of personality, though, very sweet and can't get enough of any lap.

He's got a whole long story written up about him on his door as well as several undignified photos; you can tell this guy has been around the block several times but he's ready to come inside. His photo in the Santa suit, for instance - most cats would not tolerate such a thing, but for Gilroy, as long as you're paying attention to him, he doesn't much care what kind of outfit he has to wear.

One of these noisy families would be just fine for him. No one's interested so far, but the day is young. Like the cats, I watch and wait.