Okay, so it wasn’t as simple as someone ignoring the post showcase showdown message of “Help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered,” (Figure 1) and just like that I have cats. I had wanted a household pet for sometime.

Last year, we had to put our family dog of 13 or so years (Figure 2) down to prevent further suffering as she was losing her sight and suffered from cancer and debilitating arthritis. Being in my mid-twenties, I hadn’t lived at home for years, but that didn’t make the loss any easier.

As any pet owner knows, a pet is a member of the family, and our dog Jessie was no different. When my grandfather died, my dad stayed back a few days extra to help my grandmother out.  A few weeks before my grandfather died, my uncle’s Collie had given birth to a litter of puppies.  As one family member left our lives, another entered as my dad returned with a pint-sized version of Lassie that we named Jessie.

Jessie was the most recent casualty among our history of family pets. There were cats, hamsters, and the occasional jar of bugs…though those didn’t seem to last as long.  It had been almost ten years since I had owned any cats, but I had decided that if I was to get any pets at this point in my life, it was going to be a cat.

The reason for this had nothing to do with favoring them over dogs as I like both equally. Rather, it had to do with the fact that the amount of care and attention that each pet requires.  Dogs are much more socially demanding, need to be let outside, and need space to roam. Having a full-time job and living in an apartment made the decision easy.

I knew I could get a pet at a pet store, but also knew that there were a lot of pets that could use a good home at the Humane Society. Though in the end I walked away happy, going to the Humane Society can be a depressing experience.  There are so many animals that deserve a good home, and not all of them will find one.  I urge anyone looking for a pet to adopt.

While looking at a white and black kitten about 3 months old, I saw a sign at the humane society that said all black cats are the least adopted cats. This was less surprising than it was coincidental, as this kitten’s litter mate was an all black cat.  I decided having bad luck myself was worth it if I had the power to give others bad luck by hurling my cat at them. I spent some time observing some of their tendencies, and decided to adopt them.  I took them home on March 1st and named them Grady (black and white – Figure 3) and Hamilton (all black – Figure 4).  Grady is a female and Hamilton a male.

I know Grady is most often times a boy’s name, but the way I figure it, spaying and neutering kind of adds ambiguity to the whole thing.  Plus, they’re my pets.  I could’ve named it Skeletor, fuckface, or Han Solo if I wanted to. For the record, Han Solo is a damn cool name for a pet.  As for the origins behind my pets’ names?  That’s another story…