Our Pets

Winsong Arwen Evenstar

a/k/a Star

Deanna Troi

a/k/a Troi

William T. Riker

a/k/a Riker

Are you sensing a theme here? Yes. You're right. The dogs in our family are all named for characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The cats are all named for characters from the Star Trek series. The fish you ask? Who are they named after? Why Nemo of course!

We are definitely a consistently odd bunch in our household.

Introducing "Troi"

On Monday Erin went into work with David since he only had a half day. After work they went over to a cat adoption place by his office. We'd all been miserable since losing Kira on Saturday. Both sides of our family aren't known for doing well without pets to complete our families so it was no surprise that we needed to start healing ASAP. They took pictures of a number of cats so I could make a choice since the cat would be mine. (BTW, the husband, the child, the dog, the cat, the fish - they're all mine. They just don't admit to it.) Looking at the pics of all the cats & kittens, I was totally drawn to this one kitten that reminded me of Kira. Her markings are very similar except that Kira was orange where this one is black. Her ears & eyes are huge too. I told David that I wanted to see this kitten so we went over yesterday. After much determination, my instincts drew me to this same kitten that I'd seen pics of. She came right over to me, lay in my arms & started purring. YES! We have a taker!

When we got home with the newly named "Deanna Troi" to be known as "Troi," our dog Star went wonky. She'd been missing her kitty too. Star knew that this was a different cat but didn't care & wanted to play almost immediately. We introduced Troy to Star very carefully not knowing what the reaction would be. About 5 minutes later, Troy took off as if she'd been in our home forever.

Maybe she has. It seems like she's channeling Kira. She slept in bed with us for most of last night although I'm happy to report that she slept by my feet rather than my head. She sits on my lap, lays across the laptop purring & wants my attention 100% of the time. Much like Kira used to. Who knows?

The Pitty Kitty & a New Pet?

Well, David & I learned an important lesson today. Don't get a new pet if you're not sure how your old pet will react. No! We didn't make that mistake but almost did.

Our cat Kira is also known as "The Pitty Kitty." David bought her for me days after our dog Sari had to be put down 9 years ago. We had already made plans to buy a new dog but waiting for Star to be born was killing me. I hated not having an animal in the house. We were walking in to PetSmart just to look around for the new dog toys we'd need. Outside were the cats up for adoption. David wanted this really cool looking cat named "Arrow." Too bad Arrow just hated David. He actually spit at David. We ended up with this tiny cat who looked as if someone had poured a glass of iced tea on her.

Fast forward to this afternoon & once again we were walking into yet another PetSmart. This time we were looking for a specific cat food for Kira. This darn cat is allergic to chicken, turkey & can only eat lamb-based foods. After that horrible pet food scare a few months ago, we decided to put Kira on Purina cat chow. She had so many problems that today we went to buy her the old stuff.

David walked over to the cat adoption area to take a peek. We found a really sweet kitten & a 1 year old cat who both would have fit in great for us. David, Erin & I fell in love with them. Thankfully, I know my animals & said that we needed to see how the existing pets would do. The adoption lady took a towel & rubbed the kitten all over with it. The 1 year old cat rubbed herself all over me. We went home & David put Kira near the towel. She looked at him, stuck her tongue out & walked away. She wouldn't come near me till I changed shirts.

Guess what? We didn't get either cat. It looks like we're going to have to wait quite some time before we can bring home another pet. Erin wasn't too happy but still loves Kira "The Pitty Kitty."