Pi

One week last November when I was feeling particularly unloved by the world at large, I suggested the obvious cure to my husband. "Let's get a kitten." Face it, pet lovers, we have our animals for the unconditional love they give us.

The following Sunday we visited our animal shelter's mobile pet adoption site and gravitated to the scrawniest bit of grey fluff they had. He was six months old, the runt of his litter and a mere four pounds. Obviously, this tiny guy needed lots of T.L.C. We took him home.


Unwilling to burden such a small creature with a long name, we christened him "Pi".


Our plan was to introduce Pi to our five resident cats slowly. So we put him alone in our screened "cat safe" room. This lasted exactly two minutes when he commenced yowling at the top of his little kitty lungs. We opened the door, and Pi instantly became a member of the Tooley cat clan.

A few days later our 26 pound cat, Gato, was eating his cat kibble. I might note that every attempt to restrict Gato's food intake has gone down in flames. Pi marched up to him, quickly stuck his paw in Gato's dish and pulled the dish to himself. That was the end of Gato's lunch and the start of Gato's diet!

Pi has gained one pound each month he has lived with us. He is our new alpha cat. Unconditional love is not his thing. We love him dearly, but we probably should be thinking about getting a dog.