Joey entered our lives in October 1997.  I had never been to Happy Endings but I stopped by to make a donation because they had been so nice to a friend of mine who lost her pet.  Being a cat lover, I had to "window shop" - I had to look at and talk to each cat.  My husband and I already had two cats and both of them were on daily medication.  Our 11-year old male had a deteriorating disc in his back and our 4-year old female had asthma.  I kept on repeating to myself, "I'm only looking".

Then this little white paw came reaching out of one of the cages.

As I'm whispering to this little guy, "don't do this; we can't get another kitty", one of the volunteers came over and said, "Joe has never done that! He never reaches out or even interacts at all with anyone".  She said, "we suspect he had been abused and he just sits in his littler box looking depressed when being shown".  I explained our situation and then left the shelter.

No sooner did I get out of the parking lot and my mind started working - why can't we adopt Joey?  The other cats will just have to adjust.  They adjusted to each other so they can adjust to Joey.  And so on. . .

The shelter was closed by then so I went home.  When my husband called from his weekend fishing trip, the first thing he said was, "What's his name?"  I told him about Joey having been abused, the fact that he was only six months old when he was given to the shelter, and how he had been at the shelter for four months.  I told him that we HAD to go and adopt him the following Saturday.  I also said that he was the only one I wanted; if he were gone, then we'd wait to get another cat.

I sat on pins and needles until Saturday.  We filled out his adoption papers and Joey came to live with us the following Friday.  Those days waiting for Joey to come live with us were the longest days of my life!

Joey turned out to be the best cat that anyone could ever hope for.  But he's also turned out to be one of the most frightened cats I've ever known.  Happy Endings suspicion that his former owner abused him obviously was correct.  The first time I pulled a leather belt out of the closet to wear to work, Joey ran under the bed and started to shake.  He's still petrified of men; even my husband, who would never even think of hurting him.  But we work with him each day to get him over his fears.  I've shown him that belts can be played with.  I 'squiggle' a belt on the floor and our other cats play with it.  So Joey has learned that he can play with belts instead of being scared of them.  Now he jumps up on the belts and chews them.  All of our belts have extra holes, but who cares if Joey got over his fear?

One of his cutest 'tricks' is when I give him a treat.  I shake the bag of treats and he jumps up on his scratching post/pedestal.  I shake out a few treats for him but he won't eat them right away.  I have to say, "Joey, do you love me?" and he answers by rubbing his cheek against mine and I say, "I love you, too".  Only then will he eat his treats.  That trick may not be one that will go into a book of world records but it means the world to me.

I could go on and on about Joey. . . About how he sits in the window each day and waits for me to come home from work.  About how he brings out one of his favorite kitty toys and leaves it by the door if I'm gone for longer than I should be.  About how his tail quivers when he comes up to me because he's so excited just to be loved.

It boggles my mind to think that someone had Joey, treated him terribly, and then gave him up for adoption.  But the two good things are that they gave him to a wonderful place like Happy Endings and that I was smart enough to let him adopt me!

Kathy (Joey's proud Mom)

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