O is for Oliver

After Neiko died I swore I would have no more pets.  The heartache of losing that big guy was just too much. 

Then I met Oliver.

Oliver was about six months old at the time.  He was rescued in Smithers, taken to the Northwest Animal Shelter and fostered until someone could adopt him.  That someone turned out to be me.

No one is really sure what his back story is, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that since December 29, 2011, Oliver has been a wonderful companion and has helped to fill the hole in my heart left by Neiko.

While Oliver may not be a big brown dog – in fact, he’s not a dog at all, but a cat – there are moments when I have to wonder.  He loves to play fetch, for example.  We spend many amusing hours together, me tossing a mouse down the basement stairs and Oliver bringing it back to me. 

I’ve always been rather partial to cats.  My favourite animal is the tiger!  Long before I had ever even heard of the Chinese zodiac, much less knew that I was born under the sign of the tiger, these great feline beasts have held me in thrall. One of my childhood fantasies was to have one for a pet.  I got to pet and walk (briefly) a young one at zoo once.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven that day.  As I grew older I realized that their place was firmly in the wild.  And the next best thing was a truly domesticated cat.   They’re much smaller and cheaper to feed. 

I’ve had a few cats in my life time:  Ebony, Cleo, Beau, Jazz, Randy, Venus, Kato, Josephine, Sunday, Cyan, Tango, Pudding and Petunia.  All special in their own way. 

Oliver is my first rescue pet.  And so he’s just a wee bit extra special.  It feels good to be giving a good home to an animal that might otherwise have had a very different story.  He’s affectionate and sweet and generally well-mannered.  His habit of crawling into the space between the floor joists is a bit alarming at times.  And his very cat-like love of yarn can be a bit of nuisance.  It’s very difficult to knit with him around!  But all-in-all, I’m very glad he’s part of my life.

So much so, that I ended up adopting a second rescue cat to keep him company.  But that’s a whole other blog!  Suffice it to say that Oliver’s adopted brother epitomizes kittendom like no other cat I’ve ever known.