My first cat was a calico kitten my Mom got me at around the age of four. I wouldn’t remember why, of course…perhaps I was grumpy about having a new sibling. I named her Patches. I do remember Mom and I sat very still on the floor peeking in to watch her giving birth to a litter of kittens in the bottom of my wardrobe, and being heartbroken when I couldn’t keep them all.

At the time my parents had a boxer named Duchess who kept getting out and terrorizing the neighborhood. She jumped through the living room picture window once and took off down the street. I remember the woman who came to pick her up when Mom found her a new home on a farm. But I was very sad. She was soon replaced with a Cocker Spaniel I named Blackie, because, well, black. Apparently my imagination was not yet fully developed. And so began my life-long love of animals. Growing up in a family with five children we always had cats and dogs and birds and fish and my sister had a horse. Most of our pets lived long luxurious lives I’m happy to report.

Many years ago I lost my beloved cat Polly (Polly Wolly Doodle All the Day) and I was devastated. It doesn’t get easier to lose a pet as you get older; it gets harder. I would never replace her – she wasn’t replaceable. Now I know that. I didn’t think my heart could survive much more loss. I was wrong.

But I did get a puppy a few years later. A Pembroke Welsh Corgi, precisely because I was unfamiliar with the breed. She wouldn’t remind me of the dogs I had loved and lost. When she became older and was slowing down my husband and I adopted a rescue Corgi looking for a forever home, Oliver. And when we lost Christie and were still grieving a year on, my vet insisted I adopt another Corgi rescue in need of a loving home, and we brought home Hariat. With each loss, still devastated and depressed months later, I would adopt another dog hoping to help my aging dog cope and find a new lease on life. My last was Odie, a miniature Beagle from the Kent County Animal Shelter; he was the first Beagle I had ever known. I couldn’t open my heart for another Corgi.

Hariat and Odie are the reason I live where I am now. I bought a house for my elderly dogs. Priority requirement: no steps out into the yard. We had been here several months when I was asked if I could help out a family member by cat sitting Chewy. The dogs have been gone for a few years now, but I still have Chew-chew.

The name has never suited him. He is regal, probably mostly Maine Coon. He deserves a sophisticated moniker befitting his royal presence, but I would never change it. He was already several years old when he came to my house. There was no period of adjustment necessary. He immediately became one of the dogs. He’s a cat-dog.

Is he actually quite different from cats I have known in my past, or am I different now? It’s the latter, of course. The longer I have interacted with animals, both wild and domestic, the more they have taught me over the decades. Not only are they sentient, but incredibly intelligent.

Feline Chewy and canine Odie were inseparable until we lost Odie to cancer shortly after the pandemic began. Since, I’ve begun to suspect that Chewy has felt he carries sole responsibility for my well being, and has had to become my assist animal. He will often wake me at night when I am having a nightmare or my breathing is erratic. Last night he was buggin’ me buggin’ me buggin’ me, as he often does in the middle of the night. Wake up! Did he want food? No. In a weirdly unusual move, he tried to knock my water glass off the nightstand. I poured some fresh cold water and he took a sip, sat back and gave me “the look.” It’s intensely judgmental and rather implies my utter lack of understanding; the telepathic message is one of impatience.

Then he jumped off the bed and walked over to his water bowl, sat and looked down at it, and then looked back at me. I said, “I will if you will.” And we both drank water at the same time. We hoomans are dim-witted and hard to train, aren’t we?!

So, I am a cat lady for life. I miss the dogs terribly. But it’s just going to be Chewy and I for as long as I can possibly keep him healthy and alive. We are a team. Are you a cat lady? If you know what a privilege that is, you just know. Judith Potts knows. She has her confidant, Jasper.