Adventures with Justin

Meet Justin, our first family pet!

Justin is an orange-and-white, shorthair cat. He's 10 years old, is already declawed, and has a stubby "bob" tail. We're not sure what happened to his tail, but it looks like it's been short for a while now. We got him at the Nebraska Humane Society, where someone left him in the night drop box. Whoever left him didn't include any information about him, so we're not sure what his real name is supposed to be. He lived at the Humane Society for about 6 weeks, and since they called him Justin for so long, we decided it would be easier to keep that name. They have hundreds of cats at the Humane Society right now, and Justin was the one who had been there the longest. After looking at all the cats, we picked three to meet personally. Justin was the one who did the best with Ruth. She squealed at him and it didn't bother him at all. We are very pleased with our pick. :)

Having Justin has been an adventure so far. I'd liken the process of getting a new pet to having a baby who has just become mobile. We thought we had our house "cat-proofed," but Justin found a hole in our basement that he used as a hiding place for the first couple of days he lived here. It's kind of difficult to describe, but in our basement we have these big walls called knee walls. They slope away from the foundation, leaving a narrow space between the top of the knee wall and the basement ceiling. We also have a kitchen addition with a sub-floor underneath that connects to the basement at the top of one of the knee walls. Well, Justin climbed up the knee wall and found a hole into the sub floor under the kitchen addition. Tony managed to coax him out of the hole the first time and covered it with cardboard. Of course, where there's a will, there's a way, and Justin managed to get around the cardboard and hide in the hole again later in the day. When Justin came out again to get some food, Tony wiggled his way up the knee walls, covered the hole with chicken wire, and thought all was well. Once again, Justin found a way around the chicken wire and into the hole, where he spent Saturday night. We didn't see him all day yesterday until we came home in the evening. We shut him upstairs and Tony went down, climbed up the knee walls, and managed to completely board up the hole into the sub floor.

It was a difficult undertaking because there isn't much space between the top of the knee wall and the basement ceiling, so Tony didn't have a lot of room to work. But we finally got it all covered up, and Justin is now safe!


Ruthie LOVES her new cat. She is so sweet with him, and he doesn't mind her prodding or run away from her. On Saturday Justin was getting ready to take a nap, so Ruth went into her room and got her favorite blankie and gave it to Justin. Then, yesterday, she tried to give Justin one of her binkies when he acted like he was going to sleep.

I have never owned a cat before, so I don't have a lot of room for comparison, but I think Justin is the best cat I've ever met. He is so calm and easygoing, and I think he will be perfect for our family. My only complaint so far is that he came into our room meowing very loudly at 6 a.m. today. He also likes to lay on our bed pillows, which I'm not a fan of.

We love our new cat! And if you're in Omaha and are thinking about getting a cat, you should go get one! The Humane Society has 300 cats and kittens right now. Cats 6 months and older are "pick your price" and kittens are two for the price of one. Go adopt a cat!