Current mood:

happy

At the adoption fair
We arrived a little after noon, I fretting that there would be no cages left; last month the place was buzzing due to a recent TV spot on 4Paws' efforts. But this time around it was relatively quiet, so I had a moment to review the gameplan.

Last month I was sick and exhausted and too shy to approach many of the people who showed interest in Mamacita. This time around I'd crafted every step of my strategy ahead of time, and I arrived prepared to launch a full frontal assault on the heartstrings of every Petco patron to visit between the hours of one and five.

Step 1: Location. Grab a spot right across from the entrance, so that people will enter, register the cages and cages of cats, and then immediately notice Bob and OJ. This was a big hit, in spite of the fact that they ended up with a kitten in each of the adjacent cages. (Both kittens were adopted.)

Step 2: Signs. Each cage must have some information about its occupants, such as name, age, gender and personality quirks. I threw mine together at the last minute on Friday night, but they included three large color pictures and a brief bio of each cat. I've seen enough of the genre to craft a tearjerker at 2 AM. Play up the cats' Hurricane Katrina refugee status, Bob's deafness, OJ's protectiveness of his brother, and the depth of their love for each other. Emphasize that they cannot be separated. Tape the signs to the cage such that they are prominent but do not block the view of the cats.

Step 3: Sell. The moment someone lingers at the cage, approach and introduce yourself as the cats' foster "mom". Offer to answer any questions the visitor might have. Talk about how wonderful the cats are. Explain why they were returned to 4Paws through no fault of their own.

Step 4: Let the cats speak for themselves. Given half a chance, Bob and OJ outdid themselves with cuteness. They cuddled. They rubbed against the bars and accepted scritches from passersby. They groomed each other. Bob sat and stared at each new visitor with his arresting blue eyes. People flocked to see them.

Sitting by the door as I was, people often approached me with questions about the organization and other cats. I answered the ones I could and directed the rest to those more knowledgeable than I. It was also an excellent vantage point for people-watching. I saw an old couple, who had come with their hearts set on an orange cat to replace their late companion, fall in love with a little brown tabby with beautiful orange eyes. I saw a woman with three children in tow become enchanted with a black-and-white fluffball, ignoring her neurotic hisses and panicked howls every time she was picked up. "I have a feeling about this one," the mother said. I wished her luck - it's entirely possible the kitten will grow up to be a wonderful cat, but from her behavior I judged her already a proto-queen, fussy and opinionated, the kind of cat that pees in your shoes when you change the brand of her food. Well, some people like that sort of thing.

A nice late-middle-aged couple asked me about how to adopt and I told them where to get an application. They said they'd come to see "Nick and Ollie", two kittens who'd been chilling in the Petco mini-shelter for a couple weeks. Oh, Ollie and Neko, yeah - I said they were here somewhere, back in the stack of cages. One of the women asked me which cats were mine, and I pointed out Bob & OJ. They dutifully read the signs and, as if on cue, OJ began grooming Bob's ears.

The women left to visit Ollie and Neko, but one of them, Ruth, came back to linger with Bob and OJ. I told her what I knew about their history, that they were laid-back and friendly with other cats, that they loved laps and loved each other. I told them they weren't related but had been thrown together through an accident of fate - they had been in adjoining cages when their former foster dad came to pick up two refugee cats at random. Now each was all the other had, and they stayed close together as if afraid of being separated. Ruth left and came back, made a full circuit of all the other cages and came back again.

She asked to hold one. I pulled out Bob, who purrs mightily when held. She was hooked, I knew it, even when OJ did not prove quite as instantly cuddly. She conferred for a long time with her partner, who told me she'd just lost a cat to cancer and refused to hold any of the animals for fear of growing too attached. They were really here for one cat, just one, and Ruth agonized for almost an hour over what to do. Meanwhile, another younger couple showed great interest in the guys but eventually wandered away. Ruth watched them with a sick expression; it seemed obvious to everyone but her that she'd already developed a bond, that this was a done deal already.

They were going away for ten days near the end of the month, she said. She didn't think there would be enough time for their two cats and two new ones to get used to each other before being left nearly alone but for a petsitter. I told her we didn't usually hold animals but it didn't hurt to ask. They conferred for a long time with Barbara, the head of 4Paws (a slight blonde woman with a permanent nervous expression who nonetheless manages to keep the whole of the organization on track seemingly through sheer force of will), and filled out an adoption application.

Ruth looked tired when she came back to the cage. She gazed at Bob and OJ with undisguised longing. "Those are the ones," she said. "I know they are. But if someone else applies for them before we get back, I don't want to stand in their way." And she joined her partner at the checkout, and they left.

Barbara and I agreed that they were wonderful people, such a perfect match for the cats, and that I should probably just skip the next adoption fair. We don't hold cats, as a rule, because the potential for abuse is too great - but the rules get bent sometimes, when the look in someone's eyes tells you more about their honesty and their compassion than a full-bore background check ever will.