by Dottie Cooper

Created on: January 25, 2009

When we moved to our first home, I decided we needed a cute little fuzz ball to fill it. I wanted to hear the pitter patter of kitten feet and I would learn much over the next couple of years about adopting kittens vs. adopting cats.

Titus had been featured on the local television station as a rescue kitten from an abandoned trailer in the rural part of our community. I fell in love with him because he was cute, fuzzy, slept the entire time I held him and was just plain adorable. I wish I had watched him, held him, and played with him when he was awake because I may have found out earlier that he was a holy terror.

As everyone notices, kittens are cute, energetic, fluffy and widely available. People choose kittens more often based on looks than personality. Kittens may ease into your household routine a bit easier than an adult cat set in its ways, but be prepared for the turbulent stages that come with any baby. Kittens love to scratch on just about everything-including human skin. They climb anything and everything, sleep in strange (sometimes inconvenient) places, try to play with the other animals you may have, and get into everything. If you consider getting a kitten, be sure to spend time with it while it is awake.

Titus ran the house. The dog would leave the room when he walked in. He would sit in the sink and meow incessantly when he wanted a drink of water. He would talk on the phone with my grandmother in the U.K. and run from people who came to visit. He clawed and scratched when we played with him (I still have scars to this day). Overall, he didn't like to be held, stroked, or interacted with. We tried making him an indoor cat, but the lure of the birds outside our home's windows was too much. He scratched up the carpet near the bedroom door where we kept him at night, scratched at windows, threw himself against the glass trying to get out. So Titus became an outdoor cat and he would promptly show up at the back door in the morning and evening for his food. He might come in and lounge a while, but then he was off on his midnight work schedule patrolling the neighborhood for rodents. He would sleep on the step or the deck in the sun during the day, greet us on occasion when coming home, come with us around the neighborhood when we took the dog for a walk. He was an independent fellow and preferred to look after himself.

One day Titus disappeared. He was three years old. We live in a semi-rural area, so it is my guess that a fox got him as several cats

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