Meet My Pets: Sophie!
I’d like to introduce you to the first cat I’ve ever owned - my sweet, gentle, ebony-furred first-born, Sophie.
Adoption
Sophie was the first member of my pet family, and joined it in the summer of 2016. I was in my senior year at college, and had just moved in with one of my best friends, Emily. Her family cat, Sunny, was due to move in with us soon. A few weeks before Sunny’s arrival, I got a text from another good friend of mine, Riker, telling me the sad news that his family was no longer able to take care of their 7-year-old cat, Sophie. He asked me if there might be a chance we’d be willing to take her in. I happily agreed, and have been so glad that I did so ever since.
Personality
Sophie is small and sweet, a delicate bundle of fuzz. As a 7-year-old, she was a livewire, bouncing on toys and toes left and right. These days, as an almost-12-year-old, she’s more interested in snuggles and unlimited Friskies chicken shreds, but she still gets her exercise by mirroring our daily workouts.
Sophie is also the queen of awkward cuddles. Her favorite nap spot is Dan's chest, but she'll take any chest or lap available. But, be warned, if you so much as move a muscle during snug time, you WILL get the cold shoulder until her next meal.
She is incredibly food-motivated and will do almost anything for a scrap. She has a history of stealing bags of cat treats, corn chips, and bread whenever they’re left anywhere she can get her paws on them.
Sadly though, as she’s gotten older, she’s developed a very sensitive tummy, and is now on an almost exclusively soft food diet (which she is more than happy about, though she’d proooobably prefer that her diet consist of these cookies).
Moving Across the Country
One of our toughest moments with Sophie was moving her to Portland. Transporting animals is always stressful as it is, and I was very nervous about having her fly in a plane without me - not being able to talk to her while she meowed in her crate, not being able to clean up after her if she threw up or made a mess. We had hired a service to transport her and our guinea pigs to Portland, and while I trusted the professionals, no one knows your pet like you do. It was definitely one of the most anxiety-inducing days of my life. I only found out at the end of our flight here from the midwest that she actually WAS on our flight the whole time! When we landed in PDX, I was zoning out on the bags rolling down the conveyor belt, waiting to exit the plane, and sure enough - there was her carrier! I craned my neck to try to get a view of her through the small windows on the sides of her crate, but I was rushed into line to get off the plane, and she was swept from view.
The people we’d hired to transport her picked her up from the airport and brought her to one of Dan’s work friend’s apartments. It was a very long few hours before we dropped our luggage at our new apartment, bought some pet supplies at a local store, and were able to pick up our furballs. Sophie was meowing like mad, but there were no messes, and she was healthy and happy to see us! I’d be willing to bet that she had never been happier to get out of a carrier when we finally got her back to our empty new apartment.
Since then, she’s settled in well, and spends most of her days sleeping on her dad’s lap, trying to steal food off our plates, and watching her back for her naughty big brother’s boops (more on him later!)
I hope you enjoyed meeting our sweet Sophie, if only virtually. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about her! And if you have a kitty at home, give them a hug for me.