I am a cat person. I’ve known this since I was thirteen and raised five orphan kittens in my bedroom. Last month, I sadly lost my dear cat Fred. I’m still devastated by his lost, but I recently got a new kitten, one who desperately needed my help. I’ve been working at a local grocery store for the past two months as a cashier. I learned on Saturday that a stray cat was living out by the shopping carts. I live in the desert and temperatures can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. I couldn’t just leave the kitten there. I decided to trap the cat.
It took a few days, but we were ready on Monday night. My mom and brother had picked up a “Have a Heart” trap from the local animal shelter and they, along with my dad, met me in front of the grocery store after we had closed and I had finished my shift. We set up the trap and waited. After a hour and a half, we admitted defeat. We just couldn’t see the black cat in the dark. The next morning, my mom and I returned to the store. It was my day off and I was willing to wait as long as I had to. I reset the trap and retreated out of the shopping cart area. That kitten must have gone in and out of that trap at least four times, before we caught it. The cat hissed once, but otherwise, didn’t make a sound.
Once we got the cat home, we had to decide what to do with it. My mom had talked to a very nice woman who ran a feral cat program and we borrowed a large dog crate from her, so the kitten could live there, instead of the trap. The woman told us repeatedly that this process will take two or three months and that we would have to be patient. We agreed, ready to do whatever it took to help the cat.
I woke up Wednesday morning and checked on the cat. It had now been twenty-four hours since we caught it. To my surprise, the kitten wasn’t cowering, but playing! The kitten is a ball of energy, who loves to play. This cat didn’t seem to be feral. My mom and I talked to a vet on the morning I wrote this. The vet told us the kitten is a girl and confirmed what we already believed. She isn’t a feral cat, but a stray who was probably born in a house, but now has no owner. The kitten has no microchip, so it was decided that we’re going to keep her.
After going through various name ideas, I settled on the name Jenny, after a book called Jenny and the Cat Club by Esther Averill. Originally published in 1944, it’s a really sweet story of a black cat named Jenny, who discovers her talent and joins a group of cats, also with special talents. The talents range from reading to singing to dancing on their hind legs.
As for my new little kitten, Jenny, I think she’s going to fit into my house just fine. We all love her already and she stares back at us with her great, yellow eyes, thanking us for rescuing her from the shopping carts. My oldest brother says that cats and dogs find their people. This certainly is true for Jenny.
