Why You Should Adopt a Shelter Pet: Patch Editor's Notebook

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Sophie crossed over the Rainbow Bridge last weekend,

She wasn’t an easy cat to love, but I did love her, greatly, and in the end, mercifully. I appreciated her for who she was, not who I wanted her to be when I took her in – a cat who would curl up in my lap and purr, like other cats I’ve known.

She came to me 13 years ago, a hissing, scratching, biting bundle of fur who tested every fiber of my patience for several years, not so gently reminding me that cats are never fully domesticated (a conclusion reached in a Washington University study that mapped the genome of a house cat and found that cats, unlike dogs, are really only semi-domesticated).

Other than during the natural monthly reminders that I’m a woman, I never bled more in my life than I did with this cat, and for many years, I walked backward out of rooms so she would not latch onto the back of my leg. I wore thick leather gloves when we played so my hands wouldn’t look like they had been through a meat grinder. During her early kittenhood, I drug myself into work wearing that same frazzled look from lack of sleep I’ve seen on new mothers.

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I had to remind myself regularly what it means to adopt a pet that someone else dumped in a shelter.

It’s a little like marriage, in a sense – for better or worse, through sickness and health, and a commitment. Shelters are already burgeoning with animals people decided they don’t want, and I wasn’t going to be one of the people contributing to the problem.

Still, it was clear that I wasn’t going to domesticate Sophie.

Somehow, we negotiated a peace: I would accept the affection she dosed out – and, eventually, she did become a more loving friend – and not force it, in hopes that my Band-Aid expenses would decline. And they did. I began watching for signs of aggression: Overly large black pupils meant I needed to keep my hands to myself unless I wanted to shed blood. And the tail told its own story.

About five years ago, I almost lost Sophie, but she did bounce back, a more trusting and loving cat on the other side of her illness. The last several years with her were quite wonderful, and by the time I said goodbye to her Saturday, we had found our rhythm.

I appreciated her for who she was, and who she wasn’t. She was feisty, independent, fastidious, aloof, smart and, at times, ill-tempered and nasty.

She also loved to play a game I call “kitty volleyball.” I bounced the little foam rubber ball, and she jumped up and batted it back from mid-air. We went through countless four-packs of the little balls during her life, and by the end of it, they had disappeared from store shelves – a sign, perhaps, that she was ready to bounce into the next of her reputed nine lives.

Wherever cats go when they cross the rainbow bridge, my hope for Sophie is that it is back to Africa as a sleek, stealth big cat – for that surely was her soul.

I loved her, and I will miss her.

Where to Adopt a Pet In Southeast Michigan

The state of Michigan offers a complete list of licensed animal shelters. Here are a few of them.

• New Beginnings Animal Rescue, Royal Oak
• Shelter to Home, Wyandotte
• Friends For the Dearborn Animal Shelter, Dearborn
• Oakland County Animal Control and Pet Adoption Center, Auburn Hills
• Michigan Humane Society
• Michigan Animal Rescue League
• Michigan Pug Rescue, Farmington
• Almost Home Animals, Southfield
• Top Dog Animal Rescue Group, Troy
• Adopt-a-Pet, Fenton
• Serenity Animal Hospital, Sterling Heights
• Animal Welfare Society of Southeastern Michigan, Madison Heights
• Livingston County Animal Control,Howell
• Genesee County Animal Control, Flint
• Bloomfield Township Animal Shelter, Bloomfield Township
• Ferndale Cat Shelter, Ferndale
• Grosse Ile Animal Shelter, Grosse Ile
• Midwest Rabbit Rescue & Re-Home, Plymouth