By Brendan Ulmer
Ulmer Uninterrupted
When I was growing up, I never imagined I’d own cats.
It wasn’t even on my radar.
I was a dog man through and through, with a cat allergy to boot.
I was allergic to dogs, too, but my parents always spoiled us with the beautiful, curly-haired, foo foo, “doodle” dogs who don’t shed.
Things have changed for me in a big way.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love going home to my parents, wrestling with their Spanish Water Dog, Milo, and gently pushing his curly hair back to see his big brown eyes get even bigger.
However, in my day-to-day, I have completely embraced the simplicity of cats.
It’s really all thanks to my fiancée, Maddie, who is probably one of the biggest cat lovers who ever lived. While she doesn’t quite have the same resume, I bet she could go toe to toe with Kat Helfrich, co-founder of the Hutchinson Street Cat Society, in a cat-love-off.
Maddie won the superlative, “Most likely to adopt all the cats in the shelter” when she was a senior in high school. One member of the Buhler High School yearbook staff later informed Maddie that she won her superlative by the highest margin of anyone, in any grade. That is how much loving cats is part of Maddie’s reputation.
When we began dating, I was introduced to her family’s three cats. While I certainly respected them as creatures, and continue to, all but one of those cats unfortunately conform to some ugly feline stereotypes. They are constantly moody, hungry and ready to put their claws to use at a moment’s notice.
However, the third cat, a beautiful, black-furred, green-eyed girl named Toothless, probably was the first to move the needle for me. Toothless is an outdoor cat that one day decided to walk from a neighbor’s house to Maddie’s house and never went back.
Imagine having a pet choose you.
The cat who did the most heavy lifting in my conversion to cats belonged to Maddie’s roommate when we lived up in Lawrence. The cat was a skinny little orange fella named Ollie.
Ollie played fetch and had a penchant for sitting on his butt like a human, legs spread.
Ollie was kind of dog-like and thus made for a pretty easy transition.
In the time I spent at Maddie’s apartment in undergrad, I lost my cat allergy, thanks to my exposure to Ollie.
Unfortunately, leases expire, and so, too, did my time with the little orange dude who stole my heart.
Little did I know this was all paving the way for Selina.
Selina is a green-eyed, gray little tortoiseshell cat that was born in a barn that belongs to the family of one of Maddie’s friends.
She was the runt of her litter, but fortunately for her, it was only a litter of four. Every last kitten born in this litter is sugary sweet, like crazy sweet. All four of them are extremely gentle, cuddly and curious.
This was two years ago now, and coming home to see Selina now is just as special as it was the first time.
The plan, however, was always to get two cats, but it had to be the right time, from the right place.
Ultimately, we didn’t have to look far. It turns out, Maddie’s friend was having a little bit of a hard time finding a home for Selina’s brother, Moose.
When she reached out to us over a year ago to let us know she couldn’t find a good home, Maddie instinctively volunteered.
Maddie had a whole routine planned for the cats to begin smelling each other through a door for a few days before slowly spending time together in the same room.
As it would turn out, we were overthinking it. Despite not having seen each other for half their lives at that point, Selina and Moose just needed about 30 minutes to realize: “Hey, there’s something about this cat that I like,” and they’ve got along famously ever since.
Now, when it’s time to go to bed, there are enough cats for both me and Maddie to cuddle one.
However, they usually both choose her.