Paley!

Remember how I adopted a teenage kitten from the Humane Society in January?

I still have her.

Paley turned ONE! this July. (She's still a little cat, though.)

I haven't posted pictures of her in a while, so I thought it might be nice to take some. It is always a challenge to take pictures of Paley because my iPhone is not the best for action shots and she does not sit still enough. To get two reasonable photos that kind of look like her, I had to take about 20 pictures of a black blur.

Does anyone remember Abby, the mean (but pretty!) cat that Jess and I had? ... Paley is totally the opposite. She is the type of cat that everyone hopes they will have when they decide to get a cat.

Paley is friendly! She is an indoor cat, but she becomes interested in people near my windows. She plays with them through the window. My neighbors all love her. She is also nice to people that come over; if they're interested in her she's interested in them, and if they're not, she's interested but then she'll leave them alone.

Paley is well-behaved. She doesn't jump on counters, beg for food, ruin things, or get into any kind of mischief when I'm not home. Her worst habit is that she used to bother computer cords, but she knows she's not allowed to and she only does it when she wants my attention, and she doesn't actually hurt the cords.

The best thing of all, though, is this: I am convinced that Pay is not just an ordinary cat--she is a Domestic Shorthair Retriever! I think Paley is secretly part dog. She plays with water. She comes when I call her. (Every time!) She waits by the window for me to come home, and greets me at the door. She wakes me up in the morning by climbing onto me and licking my face (which is kind of gross.)

AND!

SHE FETCHES!

The game is a little different than it is for normal dogs because she's an indoor cat, so we play fetch indoors. Also, instead of throwing a ball or a stick, I throw a toy mouse. She knows it's a game, though, and it's her very favorite thing. I hurl the mouse across my apartment and she runs and 'catches' it and brings it back. She drops it at my feet so that I can throw it somewhere else. She keeps fetching for as long as I'll throw the mouse. Occasionally it gets lost and she has to look for it, but she always finds it and brings it back.

Sometimes she wants to play when I don't. I often wake up to discover I'm sleeping on top of a mouse--she sets it next to me while I'm asleep in bed and I guess when I roll over it ends up beneath me. Funny cat.

Anyway. Happy (belated, since I'm kind of a slow blogger right now) Birthday, Paley!