Confessions of a Converted Cat Lady: Luna

After decades of seeing myself as a "dog person" who was allergic to cats, by the end of 2011 I found myself wanting a cat, a rescued cat who might not otherwise live or have a home. It's easy to think you're not a cat person if you haven't had a cat climb into your lap and fall asleep purring or rub its soft little face affectionately against your hands.

But was I still allergic? I knew I used to react if I spent too much time around my parents' cat, Perry years ago. I considered that I might not have reacted to Flannery  because her little body was shutting down by the time we took her in and we didn't have her long enough for a lot of dander to build up in our home. Still, I knew that I had spent hours petting and holding her.

So I started doing research, which I can be somewhat obsessive about. I learned that there's credible evidence that female cats, and especially spayed female cats, produce less of the enzyme, fel-d-1, that causes allergic reactions. I learned that bathing cats makes them a little less allergenic and I had learned from my friend, the cat groomer than you can bathe a cat and live to tell about it.

 I started making the rounds of the animal shelters, holding and petting female cats, breathing deeply with my face near their fur. (I tried to do that when the shelter workers weren't looking, so they wouldn't think they had a nut-case on the premises.) I never had an allergic reaction.

I found out that my primary care doctor's office offered allergy testing and that my insurance would cover it, so I set up an appointment. I tested allergic to cats again, but to give South Central Texas residents some perspective on it, only half as allergic as I was to mountain cedar. It seemed that the severity of my cat allergy had diminshed somewhat over the years. The clinician thought that if I took antihistamines and /or immunotherapy I might be able to tolerate a cat.

Rick and I decided to go ahead and adopt a cat  from the city shelter, since they are not yet no-kill and we knew we would be saving a life. We agreed that choosing a pretty cat was not a priority.  On December 31, I went to the cat shelter at Animal Care Services.

As  I walked into a big room lined on three sides with cages, a cat walked to the front of her cage on the back wall and started meowing. Other cats were sleeping or crouching quietly in their cages, but this one obviously wanted my attention so I walked over to her, not knowing yet she was a her. She was beautiful, sandy colored with soft gray tabby markings, blue eyes and a little pink nose, but skinny and with cuts on her legs. I put my hand against the wires of her cage and she rubbed her face and head hard against it, purring loudly. She scrambled to press her whole body against the front of the cage and overturned her water dish, sending it splashing over both of us. She jumped to the back of her cage in astonishment, as if to say,

"What did you do that for? I thought we were friends."

 I knew I had found my cat.

Luna's first week at home.

The shelter worker explained that she had just been brought in off the street the previous day and that she had to be held long enough for an owner to claim her. Then she would be spayed before she was released for adoption, but that I could have her held for me pending the waiting period for an owner to claim her.

He wrote down her ID number and directed me to the adoption counselor, Claire, who keyed it into her computer, looked up and asked,

"Did this cat look alright to you?" 

She looked fine, I said. Claire told me that when the dog/cat catchers (for lack of a better term) arrived at the shelter with this cat in their truck, they weren't sure she was still alive. She just lay in the cage, silent and still. I think she was just terrified and traumatized, because we've never seen her react to anything like that since we brought her home.

Sometimes she tries to play fight with us, by scratching and biting at our hands and feet, but she never fights back when our other cat cuffs at her or one of the dogs (post yet to come about THAT dog) corners her. I wonder if she would try to defend herself if she were really in danger or if she'd just freeze like she did when she was brought to the shelter.

We named her Luna, after one of my favorite characters from the Harry Potter stories. I think she's silly, sweet and brave, just like Luna Lovegood.

Most nights she jumps up on the bed after I settle in and she curls up against the back of my legs. She loves to rub her face against our hands and touch noses with us. She finds the dogs' habit of sniffing behinds to be offensive and tries to show them that touching noses is a much nicer way for polite animals to greet one another. When she rubs against your leg or arm it's like being caressed by a silk scarf, she's that exquisitely soft. At times she runs around the house like a wild banshee. She loves to hang out in cardboard boxes. One day I caught her running through the living room with a bag of candy in her mouth. Another time I found her dragging one of my sweaters across the bedroom.

My Looney Luna is full of affection and personality, just like every dog I've ever loved. And speaking of dogs, a dog features prominently into the full story of the day I found Luna at the shelter. But that's another story.