Makkaio

We weren’t actively looking for a cat.  McKinley just happened.  Kind of like the love you never expect to find…and then you turn that corner.

A couple of days ago, I took our black labs, Buddy and Zak, to the vet to update their vaccines so they could be boarded this summer.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Pretty routine.

When I got there, I left the boys in the car so I could go in and get some guidance on the easiest way to proceed with their appointments.  In the lobby was a woman with a little black Cocker Spaniel, and another woman with a cat in a crate.  I let the Spaniel sniff my hand and nodded hello to the woman with the crate.  Then…across the room…in a cage on a table…sat a cat named Cameo…meowing at everyone.  So I walked over to the cage…

At this point, I have to say that my wife Julia and I have talked over the years about getting a cat.  But we never actively looked for one outside of stopping into an adoption center at the mall.  Oh…we joked with family and friends here and there.  But most of the time, alone, we would just throw out ideas of what we would require if we were to take a feline into our home.  We set the bar pretty high…mostly to stave off actually getting another animal.  Julia wanted an orange cat with interesting markings.  She wanted a cat that would snuggle.  For me…the cat had to get along with Buddy and Zak.  Well, not just get along.  The cat had to be active with the dogs.  Snuggle, play, torture…things like that.   The cat had to have a personality…be interesting…and be a part of our home.

Hmmmm…Cameo…orange with tiger striping and cool orange and white stripes on its tail.  He meowed.  I stuck my fingers in the cage.  He nuzzled them and walked away, making sure that my finger tips scratched the entire side of his body.  Crap.  I took out my cell phone…shot a picture…then sent it to Julia.  The reply text:  I hate you.

I went out and brought Buddy into the vet’s office to have his heart-worm test done.  I took Buddy back out to the car and brought Zak in for his test.  Then Zak and I waited for his exam and kennel cough shot.

Zak didn’t really pay attention to Cameo, but the cat sure knew Zak was there.  Cameo meowed at Zak once in a while.  Then the cat started to eat.  In between bites, he would turn and look at Zak…mindful of his presence.  Here and there he would let out a meow.  So finally…I brought Zak over to the cage.  What the hell, right?  I prompted Zak to look at the cat…so he stuck is nose up to the cage.  Cameo didn’t flinch and didn’t hiss.  He calmly leaned down and sniffed the end of Zak’s nose.  That was it.  Zak turned around and went back to waiting for his appointment.  Cameo was satisfied he’d met and conquered another dog.

Then it was Buddy’s turn.  I exchanged the dogs and immediately brought Buddy into the vet for his appointment.  After the routine of being checked over and having the vaccine sprayed down his snout…we exited to the lobby.  I almost took Buddy back to the car, but thought, why not introduce him to Cameo?  No harm…right?  It’s at this point I’ve receive a text or two from Julia trying to remain rationale about why we can’t get a cat.  I hadn’t even said we should get him, so I knew she’d been smitten after seeing just the one picture.

So I bring Buddy…lover of all things…up to Cameo’s cage.  Bud stretched his head up to the cage and drew in large sniffs.  Cameo looked at Bud…meowed…then did a full-body snuggle against Buddy’s wet snout.  You have got to be kidding me.

Now…during this whole process…I’ve been asking a friend who works in the office about the cat.  Standard stuff.  Fixed?  Check.  Litter trained?  Check.  Vaccines?  Check.  But the cat is being adopted out of the vet’s office…so what’s wrong?

“Nothing.  But someone brought him in after finding him in a field.  He had been shot.  It shattered a bone in his leg.  We fixed him up and are looking for a good home for him.”  I was stunned.

Orange?  Check.
Interesting markings?  Check.
Gets along with the dogs?  Check.
Snuggles with the dogs?  Check.
Plays with the dogs?  Check.
Tortures the dogs?  To be determined.
Personality?  Check.
Interesting story?  Check.

Damn.  Long story short.  Julia didn’t even meet Cameo until he was home and getting acclimated that night.  She had trusted my judgement like she had with both our dogs (although she did get to meet both of them before they came home with us).  Julia actually agreed to getting Cameo over lunch that day.

Oh yeah…I called the cat “McKinley” at the beginning of the post.  Yes.  We renamed Cameo to McKinley, after the president who had been shot.  We wrestled with various names of famous people who had been shot…but went with McKinley because his happened in Buffalo.  And McKinley actually survived his shooting, dying from infection several days later.  So, that was good enough for me.

McKinley it is.