How Holly the Cat Joined Our Family

I wanted to do a post about how Holly the cat came to our family. This is a really long post, but I wanted to document it here for my memories. I've always had cats. I got my first cat when I was five and took him with me when I got married, 15 years later. Yep, I was a young bride. :) That cat passed away shortly after I got married and I almost immediately got two more. Those two were with us for 17 and 16 years, respectively. After that, we decided to wait a bit before getting another one.

This pic of Holly cracks me up! I caught her mid-yawn!

We actually got a golden retriever puppy a few years ago, and that was when we found out my youngest son was allergic to dogs. :) We got the puppy from a friend of my son's teacher, so luckily we could return her. My son REALLY wanted a cat. We knew he wasn't allergic to cats because we had always had them before. I kept telling him that the right cat would come to us when the time was right. I really believe that when things just fall into place, it's meant to be. 

We looked at shelters and just didn't feel like we could find a good match for us. My son was relentless in asking for a cat. I thought it would be good to get a kitten. I really wanted the boys to see how much work went into raising a kitten and how much joy they would get from it too. I wanted them to have the responsibility of cleaning up after it, feeding it, loving it, playing with it, etc. 

Would you believe we couldn't seem to find any kittens looking for homes? We searched the paper, craigslist, etc. and just weren't having any luck. 

In the meantime, while we were waiting for "our" kitten, I started making calls to local veterinarians inquiring about the cost of spaying/neutering, kitten shots, yearly shots, flea control, etc. It had been YEARS since we had a cat spayed and I wanted to know what we were getting ourselves into as far as the "start up cost" if you will. :)

First, I found out that the vet we had gone to since I was 5 was semi retired and didn't do surgeries anymore. I loved this vet. His prices were so low and he really cared about the animals. I think we paid $65 to have our cat spayed there. Granted, this was about 20 years ago. So I started calling other local vets to get their prices. I was shocked to find that they all charged around $450 to spay and $375 to neuter. What?! I seriously thought I heard them wrong. That seemed like a huge amount of money. 

My mom happened to mention that her vet is very reasonable and I should call them to see how much they charged for shots, spaying, etc. I kept putting this off because my mom lives in another town than me and it's quite the drive. I just kept thinking how far we'd have to drive with a probably not so happy cat in the backseat in a crate. 

Finally one day in December, out of nowhere, I decided to call my mom's vet. I guess this is the part where I should say that he's a "country vet." And by that, I mean he not only sees cats and dogs, but horses, goats, cows, etc. It's not uncommon to see a goat tethered to a post outside waiting his turn to see the vet. :)

I couldn't believe it when they told me they only charged $95 to spay! I thought I heard them wrong. Nope. $95. Wow. I was starting to think I could endure that car ride after all. But there was still one problem...we didn't have a kitten yet. Almost as an afterthought, I said "You don't happen to have any kittens that are looking for a home, do you?" The receptionist said "Why yes, we do! We have one little kitten we need to find a home for." She said they had a client who's cat had kittens and this was the last one left. They had found homes for all the others, but not this one. They lived in an apartment and had to get rid of all the kittens, so the vet told them he would care for it at his office until he found a home for it. They had just gotten the kitten that very morning.

If I had called even one day before, they wouldn't have had her yet, and if I had called a day later, they might have already found a home for her. Perfect timing, I tell ya. She was 8 1/2 weeks old, so that put her birth date on 10-11-12. How neat is that? The vet was so happy to find a home for her that he gave her her first set of shots for free! My mom lives a lot closer to the vet than me, so she volunteered to pick the kitten up and meet me halfway between our two towns. 

This was when we first brought her home.

The vet had put her in a box with lots of holes in it and when we brought her into our house, and set the box down, she stuck her little paw out one of the holes as if she was wanting to shake our hands and say "Hi there, nice to meet ya, thanks for bringing me into your home." O.K., I don't know what she was actually thinking, but she sure seemed happy to be here. She started purring immediately and crawled right up on my shoulder and took a nap.

I was beyond excited for my son! You see, all these events took place in one day. I called the vet, my mom picked up the kitten and met me halfway, and we brought her home all in the same day. My son knew nothing about the events that had transpired that day. :) I didn't say a word when I picked him up from school. When we got home, we just let him discover her on his own. He walked into the living room and spotted her...his eyes got really big and he said "We got a KITTEN? Can we keep her?" He was OVERJOYED!! We named her Holly because we got her around Christmas time. :) I think this was one of my son's happiest Christmases ever! We take so many pics of Holly. We think everything she does is cute and even though we've had her for 7 months now, we still fight over who gets to hold her. :) She has so many toys, she needs her own toy box. The first thing my son does when he gets home from school is to pick her up and give her a hug and a kiss. She actually runs to him when he gets home. 

She is the best cat ever. My son still can't believe how lucky he is to have her. :) She is definitely a VERY loved cat. 

You can kind of see in this pic why we sometimes call her "leopard belly." :)

If you made it to the end of this post, then God bless you! I know it was a long one (and probably boring for a lot of you) but I wanted it here for memories sake. :)

P.S....Just yesterday, Holly did something that possibly could have saved our lives. I'm working on that post and hopefully will get it up soon. Let's just say she woke us up in the middle of the night and it's a good thing she did. :)

~Lisa