How I Met Kat

When I was just a puppy, I wound up in a shelter but I didn’t feel very sheltered. Mostly I was scared and I hid in the back of my crate, waiting for Kat to find me. Kat’s my mom. I don’t remember where I came from. All I know is that wherever it was, it caused me to be afraid of storms, wind, men in hats, and men holding things like hoses or guns.

I can still remember the first time I saw Kat. She was at the shelter by herself, and she bent down to look into my crate. It was hard to see me because there was another crate stacked on top of mine, and I was hiding in the back. She peered at me and said, “Well, hello there.” Then she read the card on the outside of my crate and looked at me for a few seconds in silence. As she walked away, my heart dropped. I thought that I had seen something in her eyes but I guessed that I was wrong.

Then a few hours later she was back with Grandma. (I LOVE Grandma! She always pets me, and scratches behind my ears and talks to me!) Kat was describing a cat that she wanted Grandma to see as they passed but she stopped and said, “And then there’s this one here.” She and Grandma crouched down and looked at me. “Hello again,” she said softly. And then they were gone.

But then there she was again, bent down looking at me. She stuck her finger through the bars and I inched closer to give it a tentative taste. I saw her eyes stray back to the card that held all of my information. Grandma asked, “What does it say?”

Kat read the card, “Female, 9 months.”

“What’s her name?”

” ‘No Name’ ”

I heard a strange sound in her voice that matched that look that I thought I had seen in her eye.

There was a brief conversation that I did not pay attention to because my hope was fading away. My head drooped and my heart dropped as they walked away. I hoped Kat would come back again. In my heart, I just knew she just had to come back for me! I had been waiting for her to come for such a long time—-all the way since they had brought me into the shelter the day before.

When a worker came to get me, I panicked. I didn’t have time for a potty break right now! What if Kat came back and I wasn’t there? There were so many other dogs here at the shelter and she might end up taking the wrong dog home!!!

Instead of outside, I was brought to a small room and much to my surprise, there were Kat and Grandma. Kat sat down on the floor and I immediately crawled into her lap, curled up into a ball and drifted off to sleep.

I WAS HOME!