Life before Chris

Before I tell you about Chris, I feel I need to describe our circumstances that led to his adoption. I guess the best place to start is with another bad cat, Holly.

My sister-in-law is a cat lover who works at a vet and has adopted several wayward cats along the way. One cat, Holly, stands out among the others because of all the trouble she is constantly getting into. Whenever we visit there, my wife, Rose, would get a kick out of Holly’s antics. We would always joke that we were going to take her home because she is such a character.

Holly investigating Gifts

Of course, we were not serious because we had five cats of our own. The oldest cat princess we got as a kitten around 2002. She was part of a litter of feral cats and somehow had most of her tail ripped off. Rose felt bad for the tailless kitten (with fleas) so we took her in. She turned out to be an affectionate, but demanding…cat.

Princess

The next two cats, Abbey and Alex, who happen to be brother and sister, we adopted in 2005 when they were about a year old. Alex was a very friendly cat who liked everyone and Abbey was very shy but affectionate, once she got to know you.

Tigger and Flash came next. Tigger was adopted by Rose’s mom but the shelter called the next day wanting him back because his brother could not be separated from him. Since her mom was not ready for two cats, we took them both. Tigger was a very friendly kitten but his brother, Flash was extremely nervous. We named him Flash because when you tried to pet him he was gone in a flash. He did eventually warm up to me but he stayed nervous around strangers.

Clockwise from left: Abbey, Flash, Alex and Tigger

In the summer of 2009 my wife got a promotion and transfer from Florida to South Carolina. Princess stayed with Rose’s son, Nick and the other four went with us. I had some difficulty finding a job there and when I did it was part-time. I worked about 30 hours a week depending on demand and decided to Volunteer my extra time.

I started at the Myrtle Beach Humane Society. They needed dog walkers and people to let cats out of their cages for exercise. I decided to help with the cats but soon realized it was like spitting in the ocean. They had over 200 cats, most in small cages by themselves. If that wasn’t bad enough, we were only allowed to take one cat out at a time and it seemed only a small percentage would get out of their cage on any given day. I felt bad leaving there because they really needed the help but I needed to do something more meaningful.

My neighbor volunteered at a place called Sav-R-Cats so I decided to give that a try. The Sav-R-Cats shelter was quite smaller than the Humane Society and a bit disorganized but I liked the fact that the cats were in much bigger cages and most were let out during the day to play with each other. Many cats did not even have cages and were left out 24/7. It was here that I was able to actually contribute and it was here that I would meet trouble with a capital C.