Meet our cats

I want to introduce you to all of our cats even the ones who have passed away because they were and are such a big part of our lives.

Check out the below video to see our cats use their catio.

Heidi

Our Manx cat Heidi. She was our first cat, rescued by a vet from euthanasia when she was 3 years old. She was my snuggler and with heavy hearts, we had to say goodbye to her at the ripe age of 22.

The following two photos are 4 days before she passed away at age (and you can read more about her HERE):

Harry

Hairy Harry, our old Maine Coon. He was our sickly problem child with his heart murmur, seizures, bladder and litter box problems, but we loved him dearly! I brought him home after going to Petsmart. I didn’t know that they had adoption day and couldn’t walk past his cage. He was already 8 years old when I adopted him. He was the oldest one for adoption and I know how hard it is for old pets to find a home. Harry passed away at age 16 but we gave him 8 good years with us. You can read more about him HERE.

Lilly

Next meet our silly Lilly. I’ve always loved the name but never wanted kids. So when my husband brought our little polydactyl calico kitten home when we got married, I named her Lilly.

When our daughter was born 7 years later I couldn’t resist naming her Lilly too. After all they won’t go to school together. Isn’t she cute?

She loved to watch my husband grill and cook.

Lilly passed away at the age of 18. Her body just didn’t want to work anymore.

Lucy

Meet our tiny cotton ball Lucy. She is so small but don’t let her size fool you. She is a very feisty little thing and doesn’t take any bullying from the other furry kids. Everybody loves her the minute they walk into our house. My husband brought her home from the shelter when I sent him to donate some food and blankets. He fell in love with her because she was the loudest cat in the place. She loves to talk, sit on my lap when I work on my computer or snuggle on my husband’s chest.

Lucy passed away at the age of 19 in August 2018 and you can read more about her HERE.

Monkey

We opened our home and hearts to a stray that lived in our neighborhood for four years. Meet former porch cat Monkey who was blind in one eye. You can read more about her HERE and HERE. She is actually the only one who was able to roam the neighborhood and you can see how I accomplished that HERE. It took me forever to get her to trust me and when she passed away at the young age of 5 due to sudden kidney failure, she was sleeping in bed with me (read more HERE). I think she ate something poisoned that made her kidneys fail this fast. It broke my heart because she deserved so much more.

She had the sweetest most endearing face and her meow sounded more like a monkey which is how she got her name.

Frank

After Monkey I never wanted to have an outdoor cat again. But 10 years later, I did some more TNR in our neighborhood and that’s when I trapped Frank amongst several other cats. Frank decided to become our best friend and garden cat. And oddly enough he reminds me so much of Monkey. He is also gray and has an inverted eyelid birth defect in the same eye as Monkey was blind in.

Things are a bit complicated with Frank because our other cats don’t like him and he also is FIV+. That means he always has to be separate from the rest of them. It is the cause of a lot of anxiety for me.

UPDATE: Come see how I gave him access to my son’s second-story bedroom via an outdoor cat ladder.

Maya

We added another shelter cat to the mix after our 22-year-old died because my daughter wanted to have a young cat to play with. She picked an orange tabby and named her after the Bee Maya. Her personality is definitely different. She wants to be part of the family in the worst way and follows me all day but she isn’t a big snuggle. She loves to bite me for attention or when she wants food. (read more about her HERE)

Willy

One day one of my neighbors knocked on my door and told me he found three tiny kittens under his shed and that if I wouldn’t take them, he would dump them somewhere. So I bottle-fed them for about 5 weeks and we ended up keeping one of them.

The other two have a wonderful home with my husband’s cousin. But even though they have a wonderful loving home, it was so so hard to give them away.
Our tuxedo Willy was the perfect new friend for our Maya and just completed our cat family. I’m utterly obsessed with him and his silly personality. I wish he was a snuggler.

(read more about caring for kittens HERE and more photos of all of them HERE)

Willy on his lama cat tree. So cute!

Anthony 

After our white Lucy passed away in August 2018 I really wanted to adopt another little guy whose photo had stolen my heart on Petfinder the previous year when my husband and daughter adopted Maya. I just couldn’t forget his sad eyes. I decided to bring home Anthony who I knew would be a challenge because he had lived at the shelter for about 4 years. (read more about him HERE)

I spent lots and lots of time with him after bringing him home in September. He was so terrified of everything and Maya felt empowered by his lack of confidence and turned out to be a real jerk towards him.  It still baffles me that a cat who grew up at a shelter like Maya in a room with 25 other cats and got along with them all, suddenly decided it was ok to be a hosting meany. That’s cats for ya.

Anthony who loved his friends at the shelter really tried to fit in though after a while even though he was still scared.

In December we finally had some bloodwork done on him which showed that his globulin count was way off and our vet suggested that we should start with having a dental done to move his cavity-riddled teeth. If that wouldn’t fix the signs in his bloodwork, this could mean that he is fighting something way worse like cancer or FIP.

Our vet ended up having to remove 8 of his teeth but his health didn’t come back. After the surgery things went downhill fast. He stopped eating and two weeks after the surgery which was a day after Christmas, he passed away.

It could have been the wet form of FIP because he had trouble breathing and was filled with fluid in the abdomen. I had never heard of feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) which is a viral disease before him.

Such a heartbreaking ending. He deserved so much more.

This is our latest adoption Walton. He is a silly young guy who immediately fits in. You can read more about him HERE.

You can read about my TNR HERE.

Follow my cats’ Pinterest board HERE

All of our cats were and are such great additions to our family and we love sharing our home.

Check out our cat enclosure HERE.

I also have a series called “Living Pretty with Your Pets” where you can meet other bloggers’ pets.