Coming Home

I've always loved animals. For many years, growing up, my family had cats. The first cat I remember was Sher Khan, named after the cat in The Jungle Book. After Sher Khan came Jeff and Fluff. My parents suggested we name the kittens after their friends from whom we adopted them, but I refused and insisted on naming my kitten Fluff. I was six. My brother went along with my parents. How else do you wind up with a cat named Jeff?

When we moved to Egypt for six years, the cats went to live on a farm. I keep forgetting to ask my parents whether they really did go to live on a farm, or whether that was just a euphamism.

While we were in Egypt, our house became the house where all of the stray cats came to eat. They weren't indoor cats, and many of them didn't even live at our house. But at feeding time, they all came running. Why wouldn't they? These were mostly street cats, who'd probably had to fend for themselves all of their lives, and suddenly, there was plenty of food to be had for the taking.

Many of the cats stayed. They became our cats, our responsibility. We tried to name them all, which started a family tradition of naming our cats after characters from Shakespeare. Sometimes there would be too many and we'd get lazy, and would wind up with cats named something like "One-Eyed Kitty" or "One-Eyed Kitty's Baby". They had a huge garden to live in, places to sleep and get away from the sun, and regular food. And lots of love.

When we left Egypt and returned to the United States, my parents didn't want to get another pet. I'm sure they felt that two teenagers wouldn't take responsibility for the feeding and caring required, and they were probably right. After high school I moved to New York and was a poor actress who moved at least once a year, so a pet was out of the question. That was eight sad years with no pets.

Then, my parents decided to move overseas again and I moved back home and into their house. The first thing I did after they left was go to the local shelter and get two kittens. I gave them proper Shakespearian names (Trinculo and Costarde) and I haven't been without one since.

Yeras later, when my boyfriend and I bought a house together, we became our own little "Brady Bunch" and Trinculo and Costarde joined with his three cats (Surrah, Gris and Toonsept). Sadly, only Toonsept is still with us, but he's been joined by Hermione, Tache and Nym, plus one rescued house rabbit named Buckaroo Bunzai. That's Nym's picture at the top of the page.

You'd think that all of these pets would be enough, but my love of animals has grown over the years and I've long had thoughts of volunteering for a shelter. Finally, eight months ago, I took the plunge. Now I feel like I've come home.

I'm now trained to be a senior dog walker, cat socializer, adoption counselor and dog trainer. It's been the most rewarding experience of my life.

This blog is my story of what it's like to work on the inside of the shelter.

Welcome to Tails From the Inside.