I'd like to introduce: Miss Lily White

Meet Lily.

It was a cat-filled week. Our friends Cathy and Pat asked us to check in on their cat, Daisey, while they were away on vacation. So we went to see her every day this past week, fed her, and played for a while. To my utter amazement, she was very welcoming and sweet to us each day (she can be a little moody). It was fun.

In the meantime, the little lady whose picture you see here was hanging around our house. She was skinny, so of course we fed her...and she kept hanging around. We checked newspapers and vets, and looked for any notices or posters, but we didn't find anything. So we made an appointment with our vet, and took her in for inoculations and a checkup. The vet told us that there was a mushrooming problem with people dumping their pets if they've been foreclosed on, and that that may be why no one was looking for her. She's extremely friendly--a lap cat--and appeared well cared for, though the vet was pretty sure she had a tapeworm. FeLV and FIV tests were negative. The only problem is that the vet couldn't find a spaying scar, which will be an issue if she got pregnant during her wandering. But we have to go back for more shots in three weeks, so the vet can check again to see if she feels pregnant. I'd hate to pay for surgery, only to find out that she'd already been spayed. If she's not pregnant, there's no reason for surgery. With males you have the spraying issue, but a female in heat is no big deal.

There's been a bit of hissing going on around here, not least from Lily herself. It seems fairly obvious that she's never been around other cats. She's a brave little thing, though. The vet thinks she's about five or six years old, but she only weighs seven pounds, three ounces, making her the smallest of our cats. By the way, she's all white. Anyway, we're kind of excited to have her!

May