From commentor Sarah W:
I’ve attached two pictures of Milo, the most recently brought home of my three rescue cats. They don’t really like each other so I don’t have pictures of them together.
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I volunteer at a cat rescue shelter in Manhattan, and not long after I started there, Milo showed up (his name was Frankie then). He was adorable, got along with any other cat who he was caged with, loved all the volunteers. But no one adopted him. Weeks went by. Months went by. He came in at 3 months old, and 3 months later someone wrote on his cage card “He’s growing up here.” That did it, I had to go get him and bring him home. I met my boyfriend at the shelter so they could meet – you can see their first moment together in the photo.
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Milo is a total sweetie, and has fulfilled my lifelong dream of having a cat who will fetch. He will fetch and fetch and fetch. 2am? He’ll fetch. Mealtime? He’ll fetch. But he’s so darn cute, I can never get mad at him.
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Please keep encouraging people to adopt shelter animals, or foster some if they can’t adopt. It’s such a worthwhile thing, and it is rewarding like nothing else on earth.
Bonus video: Commentor Suzanne‘s dog Luna is still not entirely clear about that ‘fetch’ concept…
Keith G
Kitteh!
Milo (great name) looks like an awesome soul. Those of us who let cats rescue us are lucky indeed.
mr. whipple
That second pic brought a tear to my eye.
JPL
Milo is adorable. Sarah you are a brave soul to volunteer at a cat rescue. I’m not sure that I could leave without taking one with me.
Sarah in Brooklyn
That’s my Milo!!
@JPL: bringing one cat home isn’t so bad. the temptation to bring more can be difficult to manage.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
My cat fetches too! The best ball to use is a whiffle golf ball.
Tattoosydney
Agh. Someone stop me reading the rest of the “Awesome Strategery” thread. I can’t take the stoopid!
JPL
@Tattoosydney: I read the first few comments and decided that it would not be a learning experience.
Maude
@Tattoosydney:
I didn’t look at the comments. Thanks for doing it for me.
The second picture, meant to be.
debbie
That second photo is solid gold: A cat hug!
D. Sidhe
Milo is a doll. Careful with the fetching thing, though. It can get odd.
We have a 17 year old named Iala who turned up on our doorstep at about four months old, meowed loudly, and began following me around whenever I left the house. After I had to grab her to keep her from being creamed by a truck one day, we gave in and stuck her out on the balcony while we fed her and looked for her home. As we suspected, she didn’t have one. (My guess is someone else on the second floor of our complex somewhere had ended up with kittens and turfed them all out once they weren’t as cute anymore.)
Anyway, we got her some tests and some shots and brought her indoors to be with our then 2 year old cat Cypress, who, uh, hated her. We were still looking for her owners at that point, but I was increasingly less willing to hand her over to anyone who turned up, so it’s a good thing no one ever did.
She plays fetch. Well, she used to. When she first moved into the house, she would bring me toys and I would wave them for her and she would sit and pay rapt attention. I’d put them down for her and walk away, and she’d grab them and chase me down. At some point, we realized she wanted us to throw them, and she would pelt after them and bring them back–those elastic ring ponytail holders were her favorite and even now she steals them whenever she finds them on a counter. So we had a cat who played fetch, which was hilarious and adorable.
Years have gone by, and she’s gotten lazy and demanding about the whole thing. About five years ago, we realized she was bringing toys back and dropping them about six feet from us and whining until we got them and threw them again. Now she hardly bothers to give chase–in her defense she’s pretty old–but she still brings them to us, usually in the middle of the night, and cries until we throw them, go get them, bring them back, and throw them again. She just likes the attention, I gather. She’s a good kid, I don’t sleep much anyway, and considering her age we may not have much time left together, so we’re largely tolerant.
But I still suspect fetch is basically just an adorable way to get you into the habit of doing stuff to prove you love them. You’ll know it’s headed there when he starts refusing to chase anything you didn’t throw *exactly* *right*.
We’re probably looking to adopt again in a few months, a one or two year old this time, and I hope I’m lucky enough to get someone as handsome and engaged as Milo seems to be.
Working at a shelter has my admiration. I think I’d be lucky to not bring another home every time I left the building, hah.
WereBear
Milo is most awesome!
Yes, the hardest thing about shelters is not bringing everyone home.
People ask me why I have so many cats. My answer is, “Because everyone else has so few.”
Tattoosydney
@Maude:
Now I know why I usually only post in the pet/food/music threads.
mr. whipple
My wife took me to see one shelter cat and after we put him back in the cage I had my finger thru the bars scratching his head and he gently grabbed my finger between both paws and held on for dear life. Couldn’t leave him there, of course.
Kristine
@mr. whipple:
::sniff:: I’d probably have brought him home too. And I’m allergic to cats.
Second pic is lovely.
Comrade Mary
Cat smile is contagious!
Skepticat
@WereBear: The perfect answer–and one that needs to be used by more of us more often, if we may borrow it.
JCT
Love that second pic as well — awesome look on his face.
re: fetching
Hah! My cat (the McDonald’s parking lot rescue) does the exact same thing with pony tail holders. My daughter and I are always searching for them because Mango steals them if we leave them out. I’ve never had a cat do this before.
And my cat plays fetch waaay better than either of the beagles. The look the younger one gives us if we throw something for her to go get is priceless. Sort of a cross between “I think you dropped something and that’s not food”.
scav
a bit more for those in need of calm and critters in the morning, Dog Photographer of the Year pics from the UK.
Mister Papercut
I love it. I think I may need to save that sweet picture of Milo giving a cat hug for when I’m having a bad day.
I’ve also got a cat who plays fetch, super-adorably, when the mood strikes. The rubber rings from Target prescription bottles are his jam.
wonkie
I had a fetching cat. I found her undeer the front paorch, craying. I let her into the house and she never went out again, except for a trip to the vet for her spay.
She was a demon for fetching. SHe loved those little soft foam ear plugs. My ex kept soem in a drawer by the bed and she would open the drawer at night, tear open a pack and have an earplug orgyy on the bed.
Lily died of lymphoma after we had her for ten years. She fetched the whole time.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@WereBear:
I’m stealing that.
Sarah, give Milo a scritch for me.
merrinc
@JCT:
Snuggle bunny Milo! What a sweetheart.
Our latest rescue also has a ponytail holder fetish. He will knock stuff off my nightstand just to see if any are under the clock radio, cell phone, etc. The last time I went to the dollar store, I bought a pack just for him in hopes that my daughter and I might be able to hide a few for their intended use – because while we love his small orange impishness, neither of us are keen on using a ponytail holder covered in kitteh slobber.
New Yorker
Milo looks like an ex-girlfriend’s cat. That cat also played fetch (I had a lot of fun making him chase a little bird toy down the hall again and again).
tesslibrarian
We had a cat that fetched, she loved anything circular, particularly the seal from milk jugs. Once the Sunday paper had a big initial “O” in the same color as the skim milk ring on a front page, and she was so disappointed when her pounce didn’t remove it from the page.
She also would fetch uncooked ziti noodles, which was hilarious to watch her return, because they looked like a stogie sticking out the side of her mouth. Sometimes we’d wake up in the morning with toys between us in the bed, but she never woke us up to play.
She got lazy later, but we think it had to do with moving to a house with hardwood floors. Her favorite thing was to catch and return–throw it in the air, let her jump up, grab the ring, stuff it in her mouth, then land on the floor. She was about 15 pounds, so I’m sure our downstairs neighbors over the years just loved that. When she was older, we’d play the game on our bed, but had to keep tosses short. She loved it, though.
FIONA
Milo is so cute, and may I add, my sofa is EXACTLY the same, and I live in the UK, Spooky.
WereBear
Know who else loves ponytail holders?
Our new kitten, in action, but not with a ponytail holder.
Cain
I am really feeling perturbed. My cat KitKat didn’t come in last night and isn’t around this morning. I hope he comes in soon.. I already miss him. It was kind of hard because we’re used to him sleeping on our bed, a familiar lump so to speak…
cain
Sarah in Brooklyn
Thanks for all the compliments. Milo is glowing.
The fetching is, no doubt, just another way to make me do his bidding. But he’s irresistible – and so I keep throwing mice.
@Cain – I hope your kitty is home!!
WereBear
@Cain: That is upsetting. Keep us posted!
Cain
@Sarah in Brooklyn:
My (now missing) cat used to fetch when he was young, but not so much. He also used to play chase where we would chase each other outside.
Good fun. It’s too bad he stopped doing that. But he’s still my little charmer. I missed him last night.. my wife actually shed a little tear this morning when I told her he hadn’t come home.
So nice that you adopted Milo when nobody else wanted him. I don’t understand why, he looks like such a sweet heart! Although I’m glad my cat doesn’t want to fetch at 2:00am heh.
cain
Cain
@WereBear:
Thanks Werebear! I will, I hope he shows up. It’s very rare for him to not show up, when he is late it’s usually because he’s already inside! :-) I left some food out for him, and I also canvassed around to make sure he’s not dead on the road or anything. He’s been fighting with some other animal a lot, there is this grey cat that comes around who has the loudest cry I’ve ever heard. He doesn’t run away, but when you come close to him he starts getting louder and louder until he’s practically shrieking.. but still doesn’t run away. Crazy cat.
My other cat just took a really stinky crap.. ugh. BTW I have the other one (the urinating one) on medication and I haven’t seen any accidents in awhile now. Hoping it continues!
cain
asiangrrlMN
Milo is so lovely. That second picture really tugged on my heartstrings. And, Luna not fetching is so goofy (but cute).
@Cain: Oh no! I hope KitKat comes home soon.
@WereBear: Tristan is squee-worthy, indeed.
@Mister Papercut: Toby is gorgeous! Nice fetching ability.
TattooSydney, I foolishly waded in and then quickly waded out. Sigh.
Paul in KY
One thing about a shelter animal: They are sooooo happy to get out of that box that you’ll have a grateful animal for a long time (until they figure out they run the house).
trollhattan
Aww jeez, second pic is just…awwww jeez. Kitteh kontentment.
Mnemosyne
Aww. That second picture looks like what happened when G met Keaton for the first time. We ended up bringing him home that day, technically on a “trial basis.”
We were carrying him around Petco while he snuggled up to us and purred. We had to set him back in his cage so we could do the adoption paperwork, and he turned his back on us, like, “Fine! I really didn’t like you, either!”
He wasn’t happy to get stuck in a carrier to come to our apartment, but he was ecstatic once he got there.
ET
copycat
I named my cat Milo (after the Bloom County character) in 1996.