Saturday, January 15, 2011

Meet Penelope!



According to AdoptAPet.com, there are 100,000 homeless cats and dogs in need of adoption in New York City. I know why: it is entirely too difficult to adopt an animal in New York. Craig and I decided that a kitten would be a nice addition to my apartment several months ago. Since then, we have researched every single thing that would be needed to adopt a kitten. We looked into shelters, volunteer organizations, pet shops, everywhere we could possibly find a kitten.

We knew getting a young kitten (like 6-12 weeks) would be better for our situation since adjusting a grown cat into a small studio apartment could be difficult. What we didn't expect was all of the red tape we'd have to go through to adopt.

Aside from the fees (anywhere from $100.00-$250.00), there was an unusual amount of effort and paperwork needed to adopt a kitten. Some places wouldn't place a single kitten in the home, kittens had to go in pairs. Another wanted to do a home visit (after a lengthy application) before allowing the kitten to be adopted and then a personal delivery to the home. Others wanted to do home visits for several years after the kitten was adopted. Phone calls, references, applications, there is no wonder so many pets go unadopted.

Finally, we were able to find a place that had healthy pets and a reasonable adoption process. Still, it took 3 days after finding the kitten to get everything together (phone calls, gathering paperwork, checking of references, etc.) before we were allowed to take her home.

They actually had a litter of actual kittens, not cats that were 1+ years old. And so, Penelope came home with me on 1/11/11.

Since coming to my apartment, she's been a joy. She knows how to use the litter box and has yet to have a single accident in the home. She's relatively clean, hiding toys under the bed unless she wants to play with them, and even though she loves to keep you up at night, it's hard to be mad at that face just wanting to snuggle you. She still has a few moments of skiddish-ness, but seems to have adjusted well to living here.

Oh, and she loves to sit on the computer keyboard.. making it incredibly hard to blog...



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