Ready & Waiting - Nala & Cleo

Good shelter news: Tugboat has left the building! Mew Mew too, plus several other cats and a host of kittens. Still, there are plenty of cats here needing homes. And it looks like we had a shortage of volunteers earlier in the week, with a bunch of cats having gone two or three days without a socialization visit.

I join a young couple who are giggling at the antics of a tiny pair of kittens in hall 6. When I ask if they want to go in and meet them, they tell me they’re actually interested in adopting a dog but just got sidetracked. Another laughing group seem partly interested in the cats but also into their own conversation. They’re just looking around too.

I spend some extra time with a new feisty foursome in the back of hall 5, Chauncey, Pancat, Dexter, and Muffin. All are young and pretty, the first three outgoing males, and pretty little Muffin a more timid girl. I can’t believe Chauncey has been here more then a day or so – he’s my ideal sort of cat (thanks to my childhood tabby boy), a gorgeous and friendly trim brown tabby who enjoys cuddling and playing both.

Then I meet a new bonded pair, Nala and Cleo, who are 10 and 9 respectively. They have some similarities, like age and some initial shyness, but more differences. It makes me wonder about their back story and how they possibly ended up here. Cleo’s a good sized cream colored long hair, who climbs on and off my lap with head butting enthusiasm. Nala is a smaller short haired bright orange tabby with vivid green eyes. She’s more hesitant; she lets me pet her but she’s easily spooked by any noises out in the hall.

They’ve each got a dish of wet food and a dish of Meow Mix, which tells me they aren’t eating well. Each takes some licks of the wet food while I’m in there petting them, and I encourage them to eat. They purr and rub around nicely, but also meow in a concerned way. Like they’re willing to put up with all this for a while, but are anxious to go back home. As nice a place as Maddie’s is, that sort of behavior is heart rending.

I’m getting ready to visit Tony, another fine looking tabby boy, when I see a lone woman moving quietly along the condos, stopping here and there and really studying the cats. She’s not ready to meet one yet, but everything about her demeanor and pace says she would be good with any of our older, shyer, harder to place kitties.

I’m tempted to follow after her and point them out, but of course I don’t, any more than I would get in the face of a cat who’s not ready for company. Here’s hoping, though.