Here kitty, kitty, kitty...We finally did it, we got a cat! We looked through pages and pages of adoptable cats at petfinder.com and decided on this wonderful guy. We picked him up on Wednesday evening in the middle of another Seattle snow storm. It took us HOURS to get up to the Lynnwood PAWS and back since everyone was trying to get home before the snow turned to ice. I think I chewed down three or four fingernails on the drive up since I was afriad we'd not make it. Good thing we stuck with getting him on Wednesday since the next day everything was snowed in.
The kids decided to name him Moritz... I am assuming they must have read some story with a character named Moritz - I can't think of any other source for the name since it isn't a common American one.
Moritz is a perfect cat! He tolerates the chaos of the kids (even joins in a lot), is very playful (loves to chase strings and a little feather toy we purchased) and purrs like crazy when he is in his mellow mood and is looking for attention. When we first took him out of the travel box, he was extremely curious but came and snuggled up to each of us as he checked out his surroundings. And what silken fur!
The people at the shelter said that he is around 1.5 to 2 years old. They found him wandering the streets of Arlington. His vet check-up shows him as being in perfect health and he is current on all of his shots. He is also no longer able to help make kittens as of last Tuesday. Awww, poor guy.
The only dilemma we have is that one of our boys possibly has a mild cat allergy. We just got Mortitz on Thursday so we are going to give it some time to see how things go (as well as consult with the pediatrician and the vet). If worse comes to worse, we'll have to give Moritz back to the shelter where we found him so that another loving family can adopt him. I can't imagine that would take long since he is so wonderful!
In the meantime, until we know for sure about any allergies, we are going to start by following the advice from some pamphlets we got from the shelter:
- Wash Moritz once a week with a pitcher of warm water (this should remove a large amount of the dander which causes allergies)
- Keep Moritz out of the bedroom
- Possibly get a HEPA air filter (I will do some searching on the internet)
- Clean the floor with a damp mop and the furniture with a damp cloth.
