I am a big believer in Adopt Don’t Shop, but here’s a little twist… the pet you think you want, may not necessarily be the right pet for you. My advice? Go looking for a new friend with an open mind. We no longer have Munk the cat, unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, but I will never forget his story.
Our whole family went to the local humane society to adopt a new kitten. We went into the cat room and played with the loose cat that was wandering around, and we looked for kittens. Unfortunately, no kittens were available for adoption that day. We continued to pat the adult cat that was loose in the room while we looked at the other adult cats that were there. Sadly, none of them caught our eye.
We hung out in a corner of the room for a minute to talk, should we wait until next weekend and check back? Should we try other shelters? As we talked, we all took turns patting the loose cat. The kids were disappointed, but it seemed the right kitten wasn’t there for us that day, so we headed for the door.
Slowly, we headed for the parking lot, then I stopped. My family turned to look at me. “Everything OK,” my husband asked. “Why don’t we think about adopting that cat that was loose?” was my reply. We all patted him, he followed us around the room. If we wanted a friendly, out-going cat, that guy was awesome.
We turned and went back in. The family went to see the cat again, and I went to the desk for an application. Sadly, another family was already at the desk filling out an application for Gunther, the cat we decided we wanted. The woman at the desk told me they always pick the best family for each animal and not the first family and she encouraged me to fill out the application anyway. As I stood there writing away, I heard the other people fighting about the cat. It was a Grandma, a Mom, and a boy. Grandma wanted to adopt a pet for the boy. The boy wanted a dog, the Mom said he could have a cat. Boy started screaming and yelling that he didn’t want a “Stupid” cat.
I finished the application, and the woman at the desk asked to talk to our whole family in the other room. We went with her and she went over our application with us. She told us that she thought we were a much better match for the cat than the other family, and she put him in a carrier for us.
Part of me felt bad for taking the cat from that other family, but I just knew this cat was going to be a perfect fit in our home, and he was. Maybe our taking him gave the other family a chance to figure out what kind of pet they really wanted.
Munk ended up being a super special cat. He loved everyone in the family. He would go sleep on my son’s bed at night, and then when my husband went to bed, Munk would move and come sleep on his feet. Munk taught us that adopting an adult cat could be even more awesome than adopting a kitten. We didn’t have to hope the kitten would grow up and be a good fit with our family. We had a ready-to-go cat that was already perfect.
