by Cynthia Wall

Created on: January 01, 2009

We have six cats, all strays who recognized an easy mark in us. I've always wondered what it would be like to actually go out and buy a cat. When you live in a rural area you don't have to; the real question is how many you can accommodate.

Puff was the first one. We had been living in another part of town and we spied this orange, Morris look-alike, prowling the outskirts of our property. He wouldn't get near us, but gradually he came up on our deck at night to steal cat food from an outside feeder. We felt sorry for him and started putting out treats. The kids named him Puff because he looked like the cat, Puff, in the Dick and Jane reader not that they were using that ancient book but I still had mine lying around. We fed Puff for two years always too scared to even let us look at him out the window. Then we moved. Worried that he was dependent upon us on for food, we put out a "Have a Heart" trap and caught him the second night. I took him directly to the vet to be neutered. We let him recover in the shed in our new property. He would eat his food and then hide in the rafters. After a few weeks we let him out. Once again, we spotted him skulking around until one dark and stormy night, he came and scratched on our bedroom outside door. I opened it and Puff bounded in and onto our bed. We have no idea of his past but it must have included human contact the bad weather made him decide to renew friendship with the human race. Now, 17 years later, our 19-20 year old Puff still sleeps with us every night.

Next there was Joey B (Buttifuco) named for the notorious one in the news, except that this Joey turned out to be a female. She was a left behind kitten under our house when we bought it. She doesn't particularly like us but she adores Puff.

Pixel arrived next a kitten in the ditch so tiny we named her Pixel. Our Border collie found her and we carried her home. Eating is her passion and she should be named Macro now. She loves Puff, too.

Sami, the Snowshoe Siamese showed up a year later not a very inventive name but a good one for a Siamese. She hates all the other cats but follows my husband around on the farm and talks to him.

Then Priscilla, a calico stray, too beautiful to be named anything ordinary, was here waiting for us when we returned from a vacation. She has decided the roof tops belong to her and she keeps an avid watch in case there's anyone she needs to bat away.

And last of our current group is Hector, an unneutered Siamese. If I can ever catch him, we'll change that status. He has a real attitude. I named him in honor of a community college student I once had with similar leanings. The human Hector was an auto mechanics student and required to take a basic writing class which he loathed. He wore machine gun bullets on his belt and wrote profanities on the blackboard before I entered the classroom. Cat Hector would probably have liked him, but he's gradually coming around has let me pet him once or twice. The goal is to get him into a cage and off to the vet before he can make little Hectors.

Naming cats defines their personalities and creates a stronger animal- human bond once you've named someone, he's no longer just "Kitty," although that's certainly a descriptive name in itself.

The real question is what they've named us?

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