10 Years with Rosie
10 years ago today, I adopted my sweet tuxedo kitty, Rosie. She’s been with me through the end of college, grad school, and three relationships. I like to say she’s my longest and best relationship. 😹
In honor of 10 years with my OG kitty, I’m sharing her adoption story, life with Rosie, and a few of her favorite things and silly quirks!
Rosie’s Adoption Story
I was a junior in college when I looked at cats on the Idaho Humane Society’s website, intending to adopt one. I’m one of those people that cannot go look at all the cats in person; I end up falling in love with all of them and then becoming extremely upset about the fact that I can’t adopt them all. I don’t even randomly browse the website because it makes me so sad to see all the cats in need of homes.
I was looking for a mellow adult cat that loved to sit on laps, and that’s how I landed on Rosie. I’m also a sucker for tuxedo cats after having grown up with one. They’re sassy yet lovable! Rosie was in foster care at the time, recovering from a kitty cold. I met her in a room away from all of the other cats, and she was skinny and nervous. But, when she curled up in my lap, it was a done deal.
At the time, Rosie’s name was Jasmin (or Samantha…I got papers with two different names, but I’m convinced one set was for a different cat because it claimed that she had a cat buddy, and Rosie is definitely not a cat that bonds with other cats that closely). She was 3 years old and had been taken to the shelter when her first family moved because of a military transfer overseas. I often wonder if Rosie remembers her first family, and I also wonder if her first family misses her. I wish I could tell them how well she’s doing—10 years later!
Life with Rosie
I adopted Rosie when I still lived in the dorm, so she lived with my parents until I moved into a house off-campus for my senior year of college. I studied abroad in Italy for a few weeks of that summer in between, and while I was gone, she wandered outside and disappeared. (My parents have indoor-outdoor cats and had a dog at the time, so the screen was often open and Rosie would sit on the deck with them until one day when she went exploring.) My family searched for a couple of days before informing me that she was missing. She was gone five days before being spotted by a neighbor.
My senior year in college, we lived in a house with two other young women and their animals: they had three dogs total, but there were often 4-5 when counting their significant others’ dogs. LOL. It was a zoo! I felt bad for Rosie but she was a trooper. She was definitely the queen of the house. I took her out on a walk in her harness and leash one day, and she got spooked by a neighbor and broke out of her harness. She ran into that neighbor’s garage and luckily I was able to grab her. That was the last time I walked her on the leash, haha.
Her vet discovered a heart murmur during a routine exam, and I had it checked out via x-ray and then an echocardiogram. It was expensive procedure, especially for a college student, but it was worth figuring out if she had any other heart issues. She doesn’t have heart disease (or didn’t as of eight years ago) but it’s something we have to be mindful of whenever she has a procedure done. My vet hosted a fundraiser, and a local photographer took pet photos for a small fee. I, of course, took Rosie, and those photos of her are still some of my most cherished!
The summer between college and grad school, I interned with NASA, and Rosie lived with my family again. This time she didn’t run away, but she did gain quite a bit of weight after all the time spent with my family because at the time, my parents free-fed their cats. I think at her highest, she weighed 16 pounds. She is a tall cat to begin with but that weight was unhealthy for her and I didn’t want her to exacerbate her heart murmur or have more health problems.
After I finished up my NASA internship, we moved to Utah for me to start grad school! She lived that solo cat life for a year until Melody moved in, and then a couple of months after that, Sybil joined the family. I lived in the same apartment for three years and then moved into the apartment next door for the final two years of school (moved for the central air, enclosed second bedroom, and more windows as it was on a corner!).
During grad school, whenever I went home to Boise on breaks, the cats came along with me. Rosie does NOT enjoy car rides even the slightest bit. She is quite talkative in her everyday life, and in the car, she cries nonstop. The drive is about five hours, so she cries for five hours. I turned on my Taylor Swift playlist (a list of every Taylor song ever) and sang out loud to pass the time, and I liked to think she joined in with me. LOL. She only had an accident in her carrier once—she pooped at the exact moment I was pulling off the interstate to use the restroom myself. That was fun to clean up!
As much as I wish Rosie had become best buds with Melody and Sybil, they were not best buds. She tolerated them, and still only tolerates Sybil (but I do catch them next to each other more often than before, and sometimes they chase each other around the house playfully). I definitely think she would have preferred to be a solo cat overall. She likes being by herself or being next to me. She’s next to me as I write this post. We’re buds.
Rosie’s Favorite Things
My sweet girl loves SO many things! Here are some of her favorite things as told by me:
Running faucet water (she’d love it even more if we left the faucet on all day for her)
Dipping her paw in still water and flinging it everywhere
Chattering at neighborhood birds
Sleeping in the afternoon sun, on the windowsill, desk, or floor
Laying on pieces of paper
Curling up next to me, preferably on top of a soft blanket
Scratching on the tall scratching post and cardboard scratchers
Playing with her ball scratcher
Playing with rubber wristbands
Licking her catnip cignars
Knocking small objects off of the bathroom counter or desk
Going outside on the porch
Sleeping in the closet or under the bed
Sitting on my lap while I work
Sitting on the table between me and the keyboard while I work
Eating Sybil’s food when she’s not supposed to
Rosie’s Silly Cat Quirks
Rosie hates the sound of rustling plastic. She RUNS when she hears a plastic bag. But if a plastic bag is sitting dormant, she’ll go chew on it. If there’s a plastic bag in the bedroom, she knows I will wake up if she rustles it, so I have to be sure to keep those out of her reach.
Rosie doesn’t like being pet on her back. I’m convinced she has a sore back, but I don’t know for sure. She also doesn’t like being pet on her belly. Head only!
As mentioned above, she loves faucet water. It’s basically the only water she drinks. We now have to wipe her paws after she drinks (it drips onto her paw and she licks it from there) or else she’ll use the littler box and the litter will stick to her paws and track everywhere. She HATES getting her paws wiped—she will run out of the bathroom to avoid us!
Rosie used to overgroom her belly but now it’s almost fully healed! I wish I knew what the fix was. Maybe moving back to Idaho fixed it?
She gets herself into trouble like a typical tuxedo. I left her and Sybil alone out on the patio late last summer, which is on the second story. They enjoy lounging in the fresh air. She apparently decided to go on an adventure and somehow ended up on the ground. It is QUITE the fall, and somehow she only had a small cut on her chin and her legs seemed a bit sore. I am incredibly grateful that she didn’t run away—she stayed right by the front door!
One of her canine teeth were pulled when she had her dental a couple of years ago, and sometimes her top lip gets caught on her bottom teeth on one side, making a cute lil crooked smile that cracks me up every time!
I love my sweet Rosie kitty so much, and I hope I’m able to have at least seven more years with her. Fortunately, she’s stayed healthy so far, and fingers crossed she’ll stay that way for a long while. I’m going to cherish every moment with her. One giant benefit of working from home has been all this extra time spent with her and Sybil. I’m so grateful! (Trying not to cry right now. Why is our pets’ time spent on Earth SO short? It’s not fair.) ❤️
Check out the “cats” page for more posts about Rosie and Sybil!