Welcome home, Sushi and Mojo

After saying goodbye to my beautiful cats in Australia over two years ago, I have been living a catless existence. Don’t worry, Blankie and Gristle are very well taken care of in the home of a family friend. I’ve been to visit them a few times and they’re so happy and spoilt that they don’t give me much more than a tailflick of mild recognition these days.

But after a lot of thinking and talking, Chris and I finally decided it was time to re-cattify our lives. So we called around to several cat shelters and eventually came across these two furry bundles of joy:

Welcome to your new home, Sushi (left) and Mojo (right).

We had been looking for a few weeks at kittens being given away, but it seemed that every time we called about ones that looked promising, they were already spoken for. A friend suggested we try a cat shelter about an hour out of Oslo, but their website seemed to indicate that they only had adult cats waiting to be adopted. Another friend told us that they don’t necessarily advertise that they have kittens because their priority was placing adult cats, but that they do often have kittens too.

So we called to speak to the woman who runs the cat house (Kattehuset), and she told us that although she didn’t take in kittens, there was a nearby vet clinic (Moss Dyreklinikk) which took in stray and unwanted litters of kittens every Tuesday. If they were adopted before Friday afternoon, great, if not, they are put to sleep. Heartbreaking, but they simply don’t have the room or facilities to keep them any longer.

So with a little prodding from me, Chris called the clinic on Wednesday morning and was told that a litter of 5 had been brought in the previous night, two of which were tabbies (which was what we were looking for). Despite having a really crappy day and not feeling like a long drive, Chris agreed to go out and take a look. We made it out there with about 5 minutes to spare before they closed for the night, and thank goodness we did because I knew I wanted little Mojo as soon as I saw him. He was jumping all over his litter-mates and climbing up the front of the cage. His long grey fur was sticking out from his head at all angles, making him look like a mad scientist (he came very close to being called “Emmet” after the Doctor Emmet Brown in Back to the Future).

The choice of a kitten for Chris was a little harder. The two tabbies were both adorable, but one was a boy and we had agreed that we would get two females or one male, one female. But before long the decision was made for us as a little boy and his dad decided on the male tabby and took him away. This is not to say that Sushi was second best by any means. She is very shy, but has one of the prettiest faces of a kitten I have ever seen and I’m convinced she’s the evil genius of the two.

Both kittens have an unusual white stripe down their noses, so they look like a little matching pair, despite being different colours and coat-lengths.

As soon as we got home, Mojo was out of the cage and exploring his new digs. This gave shy little Sushi some confidence too, and before long they were fighting and chasing each other all over the place. Chris bought them some toys at the local pet shop, which were an immediate hit, and we made a little tent for them with a sheet over the clothes horse.

In the 5 days we’ve had them, we have both become absolutely smitten. At just 8 weeks old, they’re still tiny, but so fiesty and mischeivous, you can’t help but laugh at their antics. It’s so great to have cats in my life again. I had almost forgotten how much joy they bring.

Here they are investigating the scratching post we got them on the weekend. Click on this photo to see the rest of the pictures we’ve taken so far. But be careful, they’re so cute they’ll make your head asplode!