Pippin

Pippin is a big, silly, long-haired orange and white male cat.  He is goofy and gets into things.  (Right now he is investigating behind the computer.)  He likes to sit on math homework and get reassuring tummy rubs.  Pippin has a way of greeting me where I put down my hand for him to sniff and then he rubs up against it.  He tries to be snuggly with everyone, including Suli, our chubby tortoise shell cat who doesn’t actually like other cats.  That’s why we had to get Pippin his own two cats.  It started when we fostered a litter of four kittens for the Humane Society.  When the mother of the four got too sick to stay with us, Pippin took over as the kittens’ mama.  We often saw one very large long hair orange and white male cat happily curled up with four tiny vigorously purring fuzzballs.  He was an excellent mama!  He would let the kittens tag along with him around the house.  And he would give them cat baths and play with them gently.  As the kittens grew up they took to settling down on our shoulders.  Pippin saw how comfortable and snuggly they were up there and decided to try it himself.  Now, he is rather larger than any of these kittens, so he ended up draping over our shoulders in a not quite so snuggly manner.  

Since we were fostering the kittens, there was an agreement that we had to give them back when they were old enough to get adopted.  Darn.  That is always the hardest part of fostering kittens, and it was the hardest part for Pippin too.  When we gave the kittens back, Pippin kept looking around the house for them, perhaps wondering where they’d gone.  We could tell that he missed them and was a little lonely too.  Suli was no help.  A few months later when we visited the Humane Society, we found that two of the kittens were still there, black sisters named Lynn and Lilith.  We had a family meeting to discuss getting one of them for Pippin, and decided that we had to get both of them since it was impossible to choose.  Besides, the best toy for a kitten is another kitten.  Pippin was ecstatic!  He had two cats to snuggle with again.  Now, a year later, Pippin takes his spot in the middle of the sandwich and the two black girls sleep on either side of him.  Suli sleeps alone.  They are all four happy cats.

-lf