Personal Narrative: My Hero's Journey

Cailie was born June 25, 1997. My parents adopted her when she was 8 weeks old at a very crowded animal shelter. The center had cats roaming all over a small, enclosed room. My parents did not choose Cailie, Cailie chose them. I know that sounds a bit odd but it is true. She climbed up my dad’s leg, trying to get someone to pay attention to her. She was a very sickly kitten that no one had wanted to adopt and watch over. My parents adopted her and took her to the animal clinic. The veterinarian had said that Cailie would not live much longer. But my parents ordered her medication and gave her eyes, nose, and mouth drops every day. Cailie lived for 18 years, dying on March 16, 2016. On that cold day in March was the day I lost my best friend.

As the soldier left I stood there and thought about what I had just heard. This could not have happened! If Ra would just have listen to what I told him we’d all still be living and perfectly fine. So after a few hours I decided to do something for myself that would give me a chance at surviving. I decided that I would grab all the food I could for myself, and I would set out on an adventure to survive

First, It all started when I wokwas watching YouTube while my mom and brother were at the vet because my cat was acting and deeply breathing weird. Then, I got a random call from my brother and said they had to put our cat Kittles down. I thought everything was going to be fine because I thought my cat was a little sick… but I was wrong. It was a somber and gloomy couple of weeks.

Aboo was a feral cat for about a year before she was brought in to the shelter. When she got to the shelter, she was awful. She would bite, hiss, and scratch. The volunteers at the shelter worked with her everyday for four years. Nobody wanted to adopt Aboo because of her background. They feared that she would attack them, or run away. When we saw Aboo, she came trotting over to us and began to rub all around our legs. Right away I knew a that she was the cat we were looking for.

When I was a kid I always wanted a cat, I even had a stuffed cat with gold and brown fur that I called Sammy. I had the stuffed cat for many years and you could tell, because it was missing an eye and most of its stuffing. My parents wouldn’t buy me a cat, because my mom didn’t like cats. One day I saw a stray cat in my yard and it looked exactly like my stuffed cat Sammy. When I saw the cat I thought that it was my chance to finally have a cat, so I took a box, put it over the cat, and it was trapped in there. I ran to my parents and told them that i caught a cat. My parents said that i shouldn’t keep the cat in the box and that i could keep it if it stays outside. I ran to the cat, took the box off of it, and it ran away. A couple days later

Now, all of the cats we’ve saved have a story. But my favorite one comes from our first rescue, Gretchen Lulu. Lulu came from a colony in a restaurant parking lot with three other cats: an older black cat, and Angel and Perkins. Angel and Perkins were a tag-team, often ganging up on the other animals to gain better access to our food. We didn’t realize it at the time, but they’d been trying to keep Lulu away, which was probably why she hardly ever showed up. At the time, we believed Lulu was the bully. This was because of a few instances where we were witness to her swatting and hissing at the pair. And since we thought she was a problem, we decided removing Lulu from the colony would be the best solution.

One cloudy day, in early September, I was walking around our property. All of the sudden, a scrawny orange cat slowly and painfully crept up to me. I began to play with him for a while, but as I started walking back towards my house the cat followed me. He followed me all the way up to the door. I went inside and grabbed can of tuna and fed it to him. While the cat was eating I tried to pet him. I regret that decision. The cat turned back, with surprisingly

One Saturday morning I was picking apples from the backyard. When I heard a meow coming from the trash can. I stopped, and went to go look around. I found a kitten that was near a month old. He had ears that were curved like a ball, paws the size of a penny. He walked slanted, but at least it sort of hid the fact that the smell he gave off, was toxic.

It was the summer of 2016 and I was doing the usual summer things like swimming, fishing, and hanging out with friends but this day was different. I was doing chores around the house when my family got loud about something that happened. I ran outside to find that my brother had caught a kitten. It was without a doubt a stray by the look of its patchy brown black fur and ribs showing clear as day. Now I usually don’t pay attention to cats but there was something about this one that won my heart.

I still remember the day we brought him home. Me, a jealous a 8 year old, begged my dad for a cat of my own when my sister received one just three months earlier. My dad, taking pity on me, drove me to the shelter, but not before running some errands that included picking up a large piece of styrofoam. After finally arriving at the shelter, I headed straight for the cat cages located near the front of the building. The worker, a young man, opened a cage to a litter of two kittens, the rest already being selected by other people. I didn’t touch either of the cats, but simply

My cats are a strange duo. One desperately yearns for the freedom of the outside world. The other we don’t bring outside for the fear that he’d actually have a heart attack. Cosmo and Newman were pretty much polar opposites. Newman is the one that wants freedom and Cosmo is the one that is perfectly contempt with his everyday life. Newman had light grey fur with a darker shade of fur stripes everywhere else. That is except for his paws which were white. I wanted to name him socks, but we already named one of our cats after a Seinfeld character so we had to go all in. Cosmo was all black causing him to scare me every time I accidentally step on him on my way to bed. One day, when I was six after I got home from school during a cold December day, it was perfectly normal. Except colder than usual. Eventually while sitting in the living room I noticed two cats in the yard. It was no big deal, wild cats live all around our house. However, these ones looked suspiciously familiar. Grabbing my things, I ran outside and see that my fears were correct, it was Cosmo and Newman. I ran after them and in the chaos caught Cosmo. Over the next week, I went on quite the adventure and learned a lesson along the way.

Let’s say I have a lot of cats, and I mean a lot! Right now, I have 10. And most of them just show up from across the street or someone drops their cat off and makes it survive on its own. I received my first cat across the street when I was about 4 or 5, and I loved them. I have never seen a creature so small and stubby with huge eyes. Then as I got older and obtained more adult cats, I thought to myself, why don’t we have a kitten? I told my sister my thought and we went up to our parents and pleaded for a lovable, tiny, kitten. But to our surprise, they simply said no.

One fateful January morning, I heard the clear, distinct sound of a cat’s meow among the chirping of the birds. I got my first glance of the furry visitor as I stepped barefoot out into the bitterly cold winter air. He was a skinny, rough looking, orange tom-cat, who had evidently not had the easiest life judging by the scratch marks from past scuffles. However, no matter how disheveled the feline was, it simply wasn’t humane to leave him out at nighttime when the temperature was below freezing with nowhere to go. I had made up my mind; I would take this poor cat into my garage and feed him and shelter him at night from the harsh weather. For a month, we kept this custom of opening the garage at night and letting him out in the morning, going as far to make him a cardboard box bed from old blankets. My family and I had even given him a name, Rocky, because he was such a fighter. Rocky was one of the sweetest cats I ever knew, and he would rub up against your legs when you fed him. After some time, it was time to take him to the veterinarian because he had clearly had fleas in the past. Looking back I just wish that appointment had waited a little longer.

It was a cold winter day when I first met my cat. Even as a small child I remember the day vividly. The shelter surprisingly didn't smell horrible, only a faint stench lingered in the air. Muffled barks came from one of the doors in the lobby. Our family went through a second door where we were greeted by several dozen pairs of eyes glaring at us. My dad asked the workers about each cat. In one of the kennels two siamese cats stared at me with malicious intent. Then we moved to the kennel where Sami was. My dad had to lift me up to see into the kennel. Her gaze met mine in silence. She was a tabby cat with black and gray fur. Her tummy was white along with her paws. She had a spot of brown fur behind each ear that was softer than the rest.

We invested hours upon hours on these kittens to give them the love and care they depended on us for. This experience made me feel very accomplished because these kittens would have been left in the wild or just become barn cats which would have prevented them to living as good of a life as they are now able to have because they are social enough or healthy enough to be adopted and have a home.