Bye Bye Black Kitty

Well, today my sweet black kitty went to his new home.
Surprisingly enough I did not cry. I've cried a lot over the last several months as I struggled with what to do with him, worried over never finding him an appropriate home, and hit one roadblock after another. But seriously, prayer and persistence paid off. Back in June Rachel posted an ad about Louis on GRCC's website and that same day a woman responded saying she was considering taking him. She needed some time to work things out and decide for sure so I continued to advertise while we waited.
In the meantime I only had one other interested person who after I waded through her email full of grammatical errors and missing punctuation told me she had 2 dogs currently living with her as her daughter and future son-in-law's trailer roof had collapsed on them and they needed a place to stay...you can probably imagine why I was not comfortable with this arrangement and though it was hard to turn someone down when I so desperately needed a place for him to go, I just knew this wasn't the right fit.
For anyone that has never had to rehome a pet before, it's really a difficult thing to do in today's world. For one thing there is a huge overpopulation of cats. Summer is often referred to as "kitten season" because cats have their litters typically between April and October every year. I worked at Harbor Humane Society in West Olive in college and I watched several cat owners bring in their unspayed outdoor female and her litters naively thinking all would be well and their cats would find loving homes- only for the Humane Society workers to be forced to take the mama cat and all her kittens straight to the E-room to be put down. I know it sounds horrible, but it didn't make any sense to tell these people that their cats would never even be put up for adoption because most likely they would just take them home and release them outdoors to make overpopulation even worse. Many of these people brought multiple litters to the shelter before summer was out.
The second problem when trying to rehome your cat is that there really are people out there who will patrol sites like Craigslist looking for "free to good home" cats and kittens to use in laboratories or as *gulp* reptile food. The best way around this is to ask for a vet reference or a rehoming fee, though the rehoming fee can often turn good people away in a world overrun with free cats and kittens.
Needless to say I agonized quite a bit about what to do with Louis but in the end, the woman from GRCC decided she and her family would take him, and I'm confident he found a perfect home. His new owner has a couple of cats and was not daunted by the fact that he has had the occasional UTI and accident outside of the litter box. She even sent me her address and offered to let me come by to see him in the future. The icing on the cake is when her son told me he'd be posting pictures of facebook tonight so I could check in and see how he was doing. They must love cats :)
While I really will miss his cuddles and "talking" and "hugs," I know this is for the best. Samson has already told me how happy his is to be an only child- for now, and it feels great to know I can have the carpets cleaned once and for all without the worry of coughed-up hairballs, litter, or another accident. Plus my dad can finally come over without wanting to gouge out his eyeballs! Relief is what I'm feeling right now as I pray that Louis doesn't feel too abandoned and settles happily into his new home.
A perfect illustration of why Louis was never very comfortable with Samson around: "Someone is watching you...."
He was never very excited about having a camera stuck in his face.

"Wow! Look at that otter! Can I have one? Please? Please?!?"


This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Louis, sitting on my desk in our old apartment watching the snow. Love you Louis-Bedouis!