Why Fourteen Cats?

I am often asked this question. Perhaps the better question is how I ended up with fourteen cats, since that's the answer I always give. It all started when I moved in with my future wife. She brought with her Emerald (green eyes) and Mocha (brown eyes). They had a blast running up and down the hallway and exploring the new places.

I had it in my mind that three cats was the correct number, so we went to a shelter and adopted a Maine Coon named Adidas. Adidas was a bit skittish and never really settled in. She also peed on the bed on a regular basis. We returned Adidas to the shelter, and that is the biggest mistake I ever made. I wish I knew now what I knew then. We later found out the shelter regularly killed animals and tossed them into a dumpster. I regret it to this day.

We tried adopting a cat from the local furniture store. Yes they have a large number of strays, and the owner is always looking for homes. However, Puter turned out to be agorophobic, and was terrified of his new home. After a week of this, we returned him to the store. I figure that the furniture store had so much furniture he never really got used to an open space.

One day I came home to two black kittens, Musta (black) and Kissa (cat). My wife and son had gone to another shelter and claimed it was "adopt one get one free". Musta and Kissa loved their new home, and climbing in the Christmas tree, and eventually the older cats got used to them.

Apparently this wasn't enough for my wife and son, because they "wanted a cat like Pounce", apparently one of their cats they had at one point in time. They ended up adopting Tass (paws), who was a bundle of energy and looked and acted like Pounce.

Chester arrived at the home as a drop-off. My wife's other son had found him, couldn't keep him because of an allergic person in his home, gave him to a friend who left him outside near a busy road. So Chester found himself in our home. He was also a bundle of energy, but the other cats were older now and less receptive to his playfulness.

We had several strays that would visit our back porch from time-to-time, with Teddy and Munchkin on a daily basis. Munchkin ended up taking residence there. As we figured out, he was deaf, partially crippled, and playful. We discovered that the local racoons were attacking the feral cats, and feeling sorry for Munchkin we let him in the house one day. He didn't want to leave, but we were worried he'd freak out so we chased him out. About a week later we did the same and he wouldn't have anything to do with leaving. It took a couple months, but he eventually decided he liked being petted, and is now very friendly. He hates being picked up though.
Anaya was our last adoption. My wife found her on the internet, fell in love with her, and tried like crazy to get the shelter to allow her to adopt her. They gave in, and our cat count became 8. Chester and Anaya were still kittens and enjoyed playing with each other, so it worked out well.

Precious was another drop-off. A friend of my son's had found a litter of kittens in the barn. They all scattered but one; his friend wanted to keep her, but that wasn't happening, so we ended up with her. The poor thing smelled like a dirty garage floor and had crusties all over her eyes. We cleaned her, nursed her, and she became a very loving kitty.

All of our cats are spayed and neutered now, but at the time Chester wasn't neutered -- every time we had scheduled the surgery, he fell ill (I think he knew what was up). Precious turned out to be older than we expected, and before we scheduled her for spaying, Chester had his way with her.

We don't believe in abortion, even for cats, so along came four new kittens. Initially we called them Speckles, PJ (precious junior), EJ (emmies junior), and CJ (chester junior) after their markings. We later settled on Patches (speckles worked fine when he was little, but he really wasn't speckled), PJ (pepperoni jacker...another story), Oreo, and Snickers.

Our latest addition occurred a couple weeks ago. I was tickering away on the computer (par normal) one Saturday morning whence came a pounding on the door. It was the postlady asking if that was our cat -- and she pointed at a black cat on the road. I was fairly sure all of our black cats were accounted for, but I ran out to check anyway. The poor thing was still alive, bleeding from the mouth, and meowing pitifully. I rushed back inside, woke up my wife, and took him to the hospital. It turned out he had some bruising and road rash, but nothing was broken. While he was healing we tried to find his owner -- he was friendly and neutered -- but had no luck. So Lucky, as we decided to call him, is the fourteenth.