# Got any good stories about choosing a kitten?



## Andrilla1 (Jul 29, 2013)

I figure that everyone has at least one story to tell about how a little fluffball came into their lives. I've had cats that have found us, cats that we picked out of a litter, and a cat that came with the house! My favorite story though is how my dad picked out Bill.

Bill is the oldest cat we've ever had, and the meanest! Back before I was born, my dad was on a trip and someone had found a box of abandoned kittens. My dad stuck his hand in and started petting them. All of the little guys started rubbing against him, purring, and generally being as cute as can be...except one. There was one little dark tiger striped one that, as soon as my dad's hand got near him, the kitten attacked him and hissed. My dad knew that the sweet ones would make great pets, but he also knew that no one would want that mean one, so he scooped him up and brought him home. Bill terrorized the house for 22 years after that! He would tolerate people, but the only two people I can say that he really liked were my dad and my grandfather.

What is the best story you guys have about getting a kitten?


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## howsefrau32 (Mar 6, 2013)

This reminded me of the story of how I got my cat Stinky, from the humane society. I was 19, and went to the Humane Society with my then boyfriend for a kitty. I was looking at this cute, orange, playful kitty that was batting at me through the cage, while the boyfriend was looking at this terrified kitten huddled and hissing in the back of the cage. He said the same thing your dad said "no one is going to adopt this cat", and he figured surely it would die. So we decided to bring the cat home. They had one tough time getting him into the box which shook all over like it was going to explode. As soon as we got this little tiger kitty home, opened the box, he flew behind the refrigerator and I could not coax him out. But when I woke up in the morning, he was sleeping next to my leg....cuddled right up against me. The moment I moved, he ran again, but every night he returned to sleep next to me. He was so feral it was not even fathomable to me how he was caught. He eventually came around to love me, when he felt like it, but he hated everyone else. When I eventually got married and had my first baby, it became clear that Stinky was very dangerous to have around a baby, he tried to get at her, he would hiss at her, as soon as she was crawling around, it was clear we had a problem. I ended up sending him to live with the ex boyfriend that I had adopted him with....it had been his cat also, and he loved him and was the only other person in the world that Stinky did not want to kill, but it was traumatic for me to send him away. I tried everything to make it work. Stinky lived with him until he was about 14 and then passed away. The funniest thing about this cat, he hated other people, but I had a baby bird that I hand fed, and he was so gentle with the bird that he would lick the food off the birds face after I fed it....and was so gentle with it, and when the bird was older, he would let it climb on his back and walk around on the ground with it. How weird was that for a feral cat?


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

My very first cat. I was in my late 20s and married, we moved into a brand new house 
and not to long later this little tiny black kitten showed up. I tried to ignore it but it just stayed huddled by the front door, well
my then hubby knew I couldn't stand to watch anything suffer...I got kitten food to feed her and all my, she was a hungry little thing! I also had a dog then that didn't like cats, one day I had front door open, only screen door closed and I heard my dog whining so I went to see what was going on, well the kitten was standing with
her paws on the screen door and her and my dog were snifffing noses and my dog
was wagging her tail! I knew at that point
we were going to have a cat! (Found out hubby was hoping for that!)
We named the kitten Jezebell and her and
my dog were best friends. She stayed with
him when we divorced, but whenever I'd
visit she would still greet me...she never
forgot. When he called me several years
ago to tell me she had died, he was choked up and I started crying.
Little Jezebell lived to be 21 yrs.
Its because of her specialness, that I became a cat lover and I still get misty eyed when I remember her. Sigh...♡

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## DeafDogs&Cat (Mar 27, 2013)

I grew up with 2 cats. They were awesome cats, friendly, cuddly, sweet. They were 15 when they both died. I was 16. And as much as we missed them and cats in general, were were all allergic to them so we never got another cat. My allergies were so bad, I would have asthma attacks if I was around a cat for more than a few minutes. But, in the way of allergies, they changed over time until I could be around them longer and longer. Until I could actually live with them. So, as a gift to myself on my 31st birthday, I decided to add a cat to my 3 dogs. 

Now this cat would have to like dogs... infact I wanted one who would play with Mouse as she LOVES playing with cats. I wanted one that wouldn't run from the dogs and trigger Ollie's prey drive. I wanted a cat I would be able to bath because my allergies, even though they're nearly gone, they are still mild. I wanted one that wasn't picky about food and was food motivated so I could teach it tricks. And finally, I wanted one that was playful and cuddly with me, as I want one that was like my previous cats. 

Now, I didn't think I could find an adult that fit my criteria, but I didn't really want a little kitten either. I prefer adopting adult animals as they are harder to adopt out. I couldn't find any that would fit at any of the rescues and shelters nearby. So I started looking on kijiji.

Three days into looking on there for a cat or kitten to fit my home the first cat up was a white one with blue eyes... I thought to myself "wouldn't it be cool of he was deaf? (Two of my dogs are mostly white, deaf dachshunds) So I clicked on the pic and low and behold... he was deaf and he seemed to fit my criteria! I phoned up the lady and he sounded too good to be true... and she said the same of me! We met and he was a perfect match in EVERY way! 

It's like fate or whatever said "ok Sara's looking for a cat... well here he is! " and Munch was mine


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## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

The only kitten we've ever adopted was Billy. We'd already had Annie and Maggie (mom and not-right-in-the-head daughter) and we wanted a third cat. We went to the SPCA but didn't see anyone that really grabbed our attention. Just as we turned to leave a little tuxedo reached his paw out and tagged me! TAG YOUR IT, this little 16 week old kitten said and that was all it took! He tagged our hearts with his and we had 13 happy years with Billy!!

I love all these great adoption stories!!!!


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## librarychick (May 25, 2008)

My guys were all...unplanned kittens. lol.

Jitzu was an adult, and I was living in the house she lived in (I refuse to say the person who was 'looking after her' was her caregiver, since there was no care given. *scowl*), she adopted me after her 'mum' left.

Torri was found in a field by a very nice family and brought to the pet store I was working at at the time. She was much too young (maybe 4 weeks...just) and the store couldn't take care of her, so I called my bf and begged. HE said if I could convince our room mate then I could bring her home. I called our roomie and he said "She better be the cutest kitten ever!" Turns out she was, and I brought her home 

Doran was abandoned by his feral mum the same day the last of my litter of foster kittens found a home. I'd had a woman call that day about the fosters, but they were gone, so I said "I've got a new teeny 10 day old kitten here, if you can wait until he's 8 weeks old then you can have him." Well, the day she was supposed to come get him she backed out. I looked into his sweet, naughty, little face, and knew he wasn't leaving.

Muffin is Doran's little brother, their mum only had one kitten each time and she wasn't a great mum. She did better with Muffin, but a neighbor (who was clearly a jerk) told me he'd kill any kittens he caught...so 4 week old Muffin came into my house. I'd been trying to leave him with his mum until at least 6 weeks, since she was living in my backyard and coming for food every day, but I couldn't risk her fat friendly kitten getting caught.

Additional funny thing: Muffin got 4 baths the day he came in. The first was fair, he was absolutely filthy! But After I dried him off with a towel I looked at his little face and it looked like his nose and chest were STILL dirty! So I bundled him back up and off to the tub we went again. I got a bit of dirt off him, but his fur is SOO thick (still is), but when I was sure he was clean I got him out and dried him off again. Then I looked at his face, and AGAIN he looked dirty! We did two more baths before I caught on that the way his fur is makes him look like his nose is always dirty. It still looks like that, lol. His fur is quite coarse, and very thick, just the way it sits each hair casts a shadow on the hair behind it, making him look like a naughty little boy with a dirty face! His paws are the same.

We ended up keeping Muffin because him and Doran got along so well, and if Doran was bugging Muffin (who liked it) he wasn't bugging the girls.


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## Wannabe Catlady (Aug 6, 2012)

My first kitty was an impulse buy, lol! I went to visit the animal shelter to see about volunteering, and I was wandering around looking at all the cats while I waited. There was this group of gorgeous blue eyed fluffy kittens right next to a cage with a scrawny, shaggy black kitten. A volunteer stopped by to tell me that the rest of the scrawny kittens siblings had been adopted over a week ago, so he might be getting moved to make space. So, a half hour later, he was home with me! He was so tiny, but after I let him out of their cardboard carrier, he was running around, exploring, and giving me headbuts. 

My second kitty I found on a rescue site. It was the day of my college graduation, and I was browsing their site, and I saw his derpy cross-eyed face, and I knew it was it. I put in an application, and a week later drove 4 hours each way with my mom to go get him. He instantly bonded with my other kitty and even fell in love with my parents dog!


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## -Ann- (Jun 30, 2006)

With Cooper, we actually picked out the two gray ones to be ours. Then my sneaky coworker talked the lady into giving HER the gray ones, so we got the orange ones. It turned out great because Cooper is the best cat EVER. 

With Chloe, we were looking for a playmate for Cooper since our other kitten developed FIP and passed away. We saw her at the shelter with her weird coloring and her slightly crossed eyes, and I thought to myself, she's soooo not cute. Nobody is going to want to adopt her. So I did. Now everyone says she's gorgeous. I have to agree.

Then there's Cole... my husband said I stole him... I disagree. But in any case, he's mine now. His owner turned him over to Animal Control saying he was aggressive, and he _almost_ got put down because of it. I had it put on his records that I wanted to adopt him when his quarantine period was over so they let me. If it hadn't been for that, he wouldn't be with us today.


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## Andrilla1 (Jul 29, 2013)

Aww, those are such good stories! I think I'll add another. It is sort of a three for one deal.

When I was 10, our parents decided to move to a place with a better school district and a better paying job for my dad. My dad moved out there and stayed with friends and my mom, my brother, and I were going to move out there after school ended. While he was staying with our friends, our friends took two cats to get them fixed (they were always trapping barn cats that lived near them and getting them fixed and vaccinated) and it turned out that the two cats were both pregnant! They had only ever handled one pregnant cat at a time, and they only had one "kitten room." Thankfully, we think that the two mama cats were either mom and daughter or two sisters, because they decided to combine their litters. They took turns nursing them, they both slept in the same kitten box, and so on.

My parent told my brother and me that we could each pick out a kitten when we moved to help make it easier on us. When we walked in, there was only one kitten sitting outside of the box, all the others were inside eating. My brother decided right then that THAT was his cat. That is how we got Cream! I picked Calico, the only kitten that was interested in playing. They were REALLY young when we picked them out, some hadn't figured out walking yet! It turned out that Calico was the pick of the litter, and everyone who came to see the kittens wanted to adopt her, but I snagged her first! All 8 kittens did find homes, 6 of them through our friends searching, and the other 2 found homes after going to a no-kill shelter.

Then, we got to see the new house, and it came with a cat! His name was Sickles, a 25lb (all muscle) long haired cat that you did NOT mess with. He was friendly enough, but only on his terms. Thankfully, we were used to Bill, who was an incredible grump! Sickles never found a reason to scratch us, which is good since he beat the daylights out of our friend's doberman for sniffing him too often!

So, in a very short time, our household expanded from two cats to five! Out of those, Cream is the only one still with us, and we love him very much. Calico might still be around, but she decided to live with another family because she was a princess and we just were not living up to her standards! :roll:

Cream and Calico were the closest thing we've had to planned kittens.


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

I don't know about GOOD story and he wasn't a kitten but MowMow chose me and was quite insistent I bring him home. Each time I tried to turn my back on him he would put his paw on my shoulder and meow at me (from the wall shelf he was sitting on in the community room at the shelter). 

I walked out of that one into a new room and when I came by his door again he was plastered to the door meowing at me from behind the glass. That kind of decided it, MowMow (then called Woody) came home with me.

Book didn't pick me, he had never lived anywhere BUT the rescue and was the last of his litter because he was black. He was in a room of ALL black cats and I was trying to find one there (since they are last to be adopted out) that I got along with. He looked like a wise little old man at 5 months old. He was sitting up on a tower just chilling and not at all trying to get attention. My friend, Gabe, picked him up and Book started purring like a truck and climbed right up onto his shoulder.

So I took him and he was like a big floppy stuffed animal in my arms just purring like crazy and kneading the air...... I felt so bad for him, it was like when we walked in he thought "They'll never adopt me, why bother.." so that was it, he was bundled up and taken home.


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## bkitty (Aug 17, 2009)

I got Cat from somebody that advertised a litter of kittens. She was a 6 or 7 month old parked on top the kitchen cabinets. I was told they planned on shooting her since she was wild and a true BYOTCH. Took her home, finally got her out of the car after I removed the seat, cleaned up the shreds of the carry case. Had her for close to 18 years. She ruled the house with an iron paw.
Tuffy was a stray 8 week old Maine **** that the neighborhood boys were kicking around & siccing their dogs on when I caught them, Went out with a broom & beat on boys and dogs. Got him stitched up & he turned into a huge goofball. Loved to hunt frogs but was terrified of bunnies. He was a big old nanny & raised multiple litters of foster kittens. 
Pixel we got the day we buried Tuffy. My sister found a 2 week old Maine **** mix & shoved him the hubbys hands - they imprinted. Pixel still likes the hubby best.
Bentley came from a coworker that wanted to get rid of an old cat. His original idea was to dump him at the shelter. He has been the calmest alpha we have ever had.
The rest of our crew came as bottle babies that refused to move out.


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## NebraskaCat (Jan 15, 2013)

I've never had a kitten. Only adult cats have deemed me worthy of servanthood.

And I've never left a shelter with the cat I had planned on adopting when I went there.

*Simon* - I went to our local city shelter, which has a high euthanization rate (around 70%) with a handsome orange tabby in mind after researching their website. He was handsome as promised but he didn't pick me. So I just asked "who's next on death row?" Out came Simon, a 4yo brown/gray tabby boy. He had been passed over at the shelter because, being a declawed cat, he had a tendency to bite. I dangled a little toy in front of him, he swatted it and jumped up and curled up on my lap and became my best friend for the remaining three years of his life.

*Penny* - I started hanging out at the no-kill shelter where I now volunteer about months before Simon died. About 3 months after Simon died, I started looking again. I was visiting a room that had about 6 cats and Penny (7 at the time) decided to start up a conversation and then jump on my lap. I started petting her and the volunteer looked in and said "did she get up there on her own?" I said yes. She yelled over to another volunteer "Hey Cindy, look at this. Penny actually came out for someone." The note on Penny's file said 'extremely nervous and skiddish, drools excessively when scared'. She's never been any of those things, except with visitors.

*Nala* - The cat I had originally planned on adopting with Penny was a beautiful tortie named Rhianna. Someone had an application ahead of me for her so I came back to the shelter at the next open hours and saw a new intake named Nala, a beautiful tuxedo 5yo. She was all personality, full of eye contact and trills and head butts. Unlike Penny, she would have been adopted very quickly. I just lucked out on timing, already having an approved application the day she came in. She had just moved into the same room with Penny the day I took them both home. They've been together ever since.


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## AmberH (Jul 20, 2011)

My mom had just had my 9 year old cat euthanized and I was lost. She thought she'd make it better by getting me a kitten the same day. Her friend's house had a lot of ferals around but the lady had socialized a litter of kittens. I was madly in love with the mother cat but it was obvious she wasn't going to be mine. Of the three kittens that would come near me, I chose the one that looked just like mom. Long haired, brown tabby and white. The other two were males, but short haired tabbies with no white. She's still probably the most beautiful cat I have. She's 11 years old now. I can't believe it! 

I didn't chose any of the other cats with the exception of Possum but he was already a senior. I did adopt him from the shelter. Oden wandered up to me behind my house and Destiny was given to me by a family friend.


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## hayleyelizabeth (Jun 3, 2013)

I'm loving these stories! 

Scarly is my third cat, but the first that I really remember and my first "own pet" as an adult. I had just moved into a flatshare with some other students, and we had joked about getting a fennec fox for a few months before we moved in. Obviously that option wasn't actually realistic, and I suggested getting a kitten, but nobody wanted the responsibility. 

Three days after moving in, I walked past a pet shop (eugh.. I still cringe to think that I supported the business) and this tiny, baldy black kitten sat in the window all by herself in a box above five luxuriously coated orange female kittens bouncing around together. Her sad milky eyes just looked like she was begging me to come in. I asked about her, and the shop keeper said she was three months old and had been in there for over a month without company! Nobody wanted her because she was exuberant and not particularly pretty, and definitely a runt. At three months she was only three-quarters the size of the two month old ginger babies in the cage below, and had clearly been taken from her mum too early. 

I asked to hold her and as soon as I picked her up, she jumped out of my arms and hit her closed cage door, and I knew she had to be mine. I forked out the 40 pounds they were asking for her and brought her home, and the boys all loved her from that day on. Sometimes you've just gotta do what you want, regardless of others. She is HANDS DOWN the most responsive, entertaining pet that I've ever had, and is much more of a presence than the dogs that I had in school!


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## ImpossibleGirl (Aug 2, 2013)

Well... My first kitten was one of two that me and my roommate looked at when we went to the county shelter. The first one... was nice, but aloof. I had one more to look at after number two, but she curled up in my arms, yawned, and licked my thumbnail. I knew she was Mine.

When she passed away (due to unknown causes - the vet thinks she had some sort of congenital defect, but he didn't find anything in the autopsy), I couldn't handle not having a kitten sleeping in my room (which is where the first one slept). I went to three shelters this time - one had a few males that I loved (and one that had absolutely no sense of manners - he kept bothering one of his brothers at the litter box, and attacking my roomie's purse and belly and feet and breasts and hair), but my mom is adamantly against male cats. The two girls the first shelter had were scared of me. 

On to shelter number two. I felt SO. BAD. for the dogs there, actually - while I was waiting to be let back to look at the kittens, there was an owner surrender, and the shelter workers were just so mean to the poor dog, who was probably downright terrified - and the shelter workers were downright rude, and unhelpful. If I'd found a kitten that was My Cat there, I have no doubts that I would have paid the fee right then and there, even though they were going to have a sale on adoptions in two days. 

Shelter number three, though... I've always loved the look of torties. And there was a tortie girl there, 12 weeks, and adorable. So I went over to her cage, and... she flipped out. So I looked around, and found a set of siblings - two boys, three girls, separated by gender. So I looked at the girls, who got the following three nicknames:

Tail-Catcher - probably the queen of the cage, she spent the duration of my visit sitting on top of a scratching stool, trying to bite her sisters' tails.

Jumpy - she liked to hang from the bars of the cage door.

Snuggly - she liked to lay down in the cage, and snuggled when I picked her up. She was the one who eventually came home, for the price of $25 and a (legally binding, contractual) promise to vaccinate her against rabies in a month (that actually ended up not quite happening - she's currently still too young for a rabies shot, so we have to wait. Thankfully, the city is remarkably cooperative). 

So, we run by PetSmart to pick her up her very own collar (I refuse to re-use collars from any pet. My dog's collar is my dog's, even though he passed away. Same with my first kitten), and bring her home. By this point, Snuggly's name is Amelia Pond, and we've sung the Doctor Who theme song to her about ten times. We let her out to meet my parents, and...

...She runs and hides underneath the sofa. It took three days for her to acclimate to my house. It had taken my first kitten about three minutes, so I was a bit at a loss, and ended up getting a scratch on my wrist that lightly scarred, and got mildly infected pretty quickly. However, the first night I had to sleep away from home due to an early morning obligation. I call to check on her, and...

...My parents have both gotten scratched, and she's _still_ managed to weasel her way into far too many treats for her own good.


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## wolfheartmoon (Aug 3, 2013)

My first kitty was Zoe, and I HAD been looking to get Pumpkin after browsing the shelters website, she looked cute, and sounded nice too. But when I went there, Pumpkin was out getting spayed, so I decided "Oh why not" and checked out the other ones. There was a big cage with about four or five kittens in it, and I looked there and played with two of them, I thought I was going to get the first one I'd played with, so went to take her out again, and Zoe jumped in the way and sat on her. I figured I'd play with the little tortie for awhile and took her out. She snuggled right into my lap and started purring and demanding to be petted. And I was then doomed.


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