3:08am – Heard loud noises. Assumed the house was caving in around us and/or a dinosaur had stepped in our front yard. Turned out to be the cats trying to kill each other over a rope mouse. We buy these in packs of 8 and they were fighting over a single one. Threatened to let in the dogs, tossed another rope mouse in their general direction and rolled over to go back to sleep.

I may or may not have accidentally hit one of the cats in the head with the rope mouse.

3:27am – Heard loud noises. Assumed we were (for reals this time) going to die. Turned in alarm to wake up Dan and discovered that the loud noises were coming from him. Muttered an expletive and told him to roll over because he was snoring. Considered hitting him in the head with a rope mouse.

3:48am – Heard a loud noise. Considered ignoring it until I realized that it was a constant noise coming from outside. Woke up enough to peek out the window at the torrential downpour. Freaked out because the dogs were outside. Tried to gather up the cats so I could lock them up but they wouldn’t budge from under the bed. Decided to lock them in our room, threw on a jacket and boots and went running into the rain to rescue the dogs. Found them sleeping very soundly, nice and dry, in their crates. They slept through the loud thunder but when they heard me coming, got up and started barking. Of course. Forced them to come inside because I hate the smell of wet dog.

3:54am – On my stomach, trying to coax cats out from under the bed. Their litter boxes are upstairs and there is no way I’m cooping them up in our room without access. Finally got one to come to me. Fed her a treat in front of the other two to trick them to come out from under the bed and carried her upstairs.

4:02am – On my stomach again, trying to lure two cats out from under the bed with another treat. One finally comes over to me. Rain and thunder have died down, so he apparently felt safe. The other is still being a turd.

4:11am – Dan lets out a loud snorting noise during his snoring. This startles the cat enough to come running out from under the bed. I win! Kinda.

4:17am – Finally have all three cats upstairs. Check on the dogs. Check the locks on the doors and peak my head into the garage to make sure everything is locked up tight. Discover rain water pouring through the roof.

4:23am – Go to bed. I’m done.

Because of the bad weather, our cats have been corralled upstairs in order to let the dogs inside to escape the rain. I heard some meowing, so I went upstairs to hang out with them for a little bit. As I was in there, I heard more meowing, but this time it obviously wasn’t coming from our cats.

I ventured to the backyard, hesitantly. I was slightly worried that a cat would be trapped in a tree or would be torturing yet another dead rat. (I can’t handle a third dead rat. I. Will. Move.)

No cats in the backyard so I finally went to the front yard. There, sitting prettily in the bright sunlight right outside our front door was a tiny kitten. I named her in an instant, of course. Lila froze mid-meow when I opened the door and we had a slight staring match. She looked into my eyes and I felt an instant connection with the pretty tabby kitten.

As I bent down to her level, I made sure to stay a safe distance away so as not to startle her. I gently placed my hand out, patiently waiting for her to scamper over, lick my finger and purr. I was patiently waiting for her to claim me as her human caretaker.

She gave another meow, but this one sounded distinctly like she was terrified of the fact that a stranger opened the door. She bolted before I could even blink.

Stupid Lila. I gave her my heart and she ran away without a second glance. We could have been soul mates.

Miles away, Dan felt a sudden flood of relief, without knowing the reason why.

Dan and I have been seriously discussing getting another pet. Part of it is because we hear news stories about the number of animals being abandoned in foreclosed homes. The other part of it is because I love fluffy animals.

At least I’m honest, right?

Anyway, we had finally decided that Dan would be the next one to pick out the pet. It’s only fair, seeing as how he claimed not to like cats and then I bullied him into getting 3 of them. He decided he wants to get a dog and began researching breeds he liked. After much searching, he decided he wanted a Belgian Malinois. I’m not going to lie-my idea of a dog is tiny and fluffy and has more of a yip than a bark. I was a little less than thrilled at his choice. After some searching online for local shelters or breeders that had his prefered dog, he came up empty handed. He decided instead to adopt a shelter dog.

We had an adult moment where we realized that a third dog would be hard to integrate into our zoo little pet family. Since we’re taking care of my parents’ adult dogs, we didn’t want to find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of them not getting along with the new dog. We also hope to one day integrate our dog into our cats’ lives. This would be impossible since we keep the dogs and cats apart right now. “They don’t get along” is putting it mildly. There is a lot of angry barking and hissing when they see each other through the windows. More than once, I’ve worried that an animal has a broken bone from throwing themselves at the glass.

We went a week with no pet talk. Until I saw an ad for a local shelter…

I started researching being a foster home for cats. They request that we don’t try to introduce the foster animal with other pets. We have lots of empty bedrooms upstairs that the foster cat could sleep in. We only have to pay for food and litter-everything else is provided by the shelter organization. We’d take the kitties to the local Petsmart for the adoption events where we would beat off potential applicants so we could keep each and every single one try to find them their perfect forever home.

When I thanked Dan for letting us take in fosters he replied with “what’s that? Thanks for being a sucker? You’re welcome Sweetie.”

True. I managed to convince him to let me get even more cats even though he knows there an extremely high possibilty that I will be a foster failure. Stay tuned. In about 3 months there will be another post telling you about our exciting adoption of a million cats and our impending eviction for too many animals.