Our Crazies

We are the crazy cat couple! We were through adopting/rescuing cats four cats ago, and here we are today with a total of 7! We only set out to purposely adopt two cats back in 2005. We’ve named a total of 10 cats.

Meet the crazies!

Targét is our oldest, pronounced tar-jeh, like the bougie version of Target. He had very distinct circle pattern on his side (not as obvious now), which is classic tabby markings. So Targét just stuck.

We went to Petsmart Sept 9, 2006 to pick out a cat tree for Marble and Jasmine and came home with another cat.

Up until July 2023, he has been in overall great health with his only main issue being really bad osteoarthritis. At the end of July 2023, he was diagnosed with two tumors, one on his heart. He started taking medication recommended by our vet to possibly shrink the tumors, and it’s effective, though the tumors are still there. As of late Feb 2024, he is doing really well!

Oxford & Bailey are brothers we took in at our second apartment complex back on July 6, 2009. We were told that a woman in the apartment complex didn’t want them anymore, so she just kicked them out to roam in a hot parking lot with their collars still on. Fortunately we were moving to a house the following month, so we were able to keep them.

Oxford is the bobtail one (top) and has confirmed IBD through Auburn University and has had a heart murmur for years. Bailey more than likely has a mild case of IBD and developed a heart murmur in 2023.

We moved into our second house July 10, 2019 and these two came with it, loitering outside in the woods as 8-week-old feral kittens.

Valiente (right) means ‘brave’ in Spanish, but we do not pronounce the V like a B as is usually the case with Spanish pronunciation. He was the braver of the two when they were little.

Zari (left) is a play on a Romanian pharse ‘a zărí‘ meaning “to glimpse” because that’s all we ever saw of her when she was younger – a glimpse. We pronounce her name ‘zar-e.’

At the time of acquiring Valiente & Zari, we already had 5 cats, and we didn’t really want to add more. But after months of working with them to get them to come to us willingly and to bring them inside, there was no way I could let them go. Valiente has become my gardening buddy when it’s not too hot outside.

We said Valiente & Zari were the final cats we’d have, but then I rescued Pandora from underneath a pallet in the Lowe’s parking lot May 31, 2023 – just 4 days after our sweet Jasmine passed. We were initially going to give her to a woman in the neighborhood, but we changed our minds – after the woman showed up. 😂

With it being 4 days after Jasmine’s passing and with her having the same colors as Marble, a lot of people tell us Marble and Jasmine sent her to us. Whatever put her in my path that day, she has a permanent home here with us now.

Pandora gets her name from Pandora’s Box, focusing more on how Pandora closed the box before hope could escape. So she holds hope.

I felt a tad guilty that Pandora would not get the chance to play with other kittens her age if she’d gone with the woman who would have adopted her, so the universe said, “Here you go!” Vidalia was rescued by Alex in the drive-thru of The Purple Onion (restaurant) July 11, 2023.

He originally wanted to name her Onion because of where she was found, and she is white with brown, like an onion. I did not want to call her onion, so we compromised with Vidalia.

We adopted Jasmine and Marble on the same day: Dec 23, 2005. We were living in our first apartment complex, and we figured 2 kittens would be a better choice. I mean, low maintenance, and you don’t have to walk them, right? Neither of us had ever had cats… boy are they different from dogs in so many ways! 😂

Alex and I each picked a kitten from the vet clinic to adopt that day, and Jasmine was my choice. She was climbing all over the cage, meowing for attention, and I just had to have her.

I picked the name after going through a list of possibilities for a while. Her last year was plagued with health issues from kidney infections,, thyroid problems, pancreatitis, and finally congestive heart failure. We miss you sweet girl!

Alex chose Marble to adopt on the same day we got Jasmine. With him being black and white, it reminded us of a marble, and so that is what we started calling him.

He was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in September 2017, and we are thankful to have enjoyed 4 more years with him after the fact.

We lost him in January 2022, and he is so very missed by us both.

Back at the beginning of August 2012, this beautiful, sweet cat started hanging around our house. We took him to the vet for shots, an exam, and tests. Sadly, he was feline leukemia positive. The vet recommended putting him down, but I just couldn’t do it with him seeming so healthy. Had he been negative, he would have been inside with our other cats as cat #6 at the time.

We figured he could be our first outdoor cat, so we left our garage door cracked (no access to the house from it) so he would have shelter, food, and water.

After much debate, we named him Higgins, but he was only around for a few months before he disappeared. I saw a black cat dart out of the garage one night, so I guess it ran him off. In hindsight, we should have put him down to prevent the spread of feline leukemia to other cats. Had he been an indoor-only cat and the only cat, we could have kept him inside with no problem. I often wonder what happened to this little sweet baby. 😢

This sweet boy wondering up at our home Oct 13, 2023 and got the nickname ‘Timothy’ that evening. Once he was coaxed into petting, he never left our house. So we took him to the vet for shots, disease check, and to be neutered so we could find him a home.

Another indoor cat wasn’t possible with our 3 senior cats and with Pandora having issues using the bathroom outside the litter box. So with a heavy heart, 2 weeks after being neutered and still having not found him a home with anyone we knew, we drove him to a friend’s cat rescue in hopes of him finding a good home where he deserves more attention than we can physically give him at this time. It was hard to walk away, and the boyfriend and I both shed more than a few tears. I don’t know how people foster and rescue cats all the time because it’s so hard to let go.