They say that you don’t pick cats, they pick you. That is so true in our case. Except our cat picked our dog. We adopted our beagle, Shiloh, from a research lab 5 years ago. We had him for just one month when I heard this terrible cry across the street. I could see the silhouette of something, but wasn’t sure if it was a cat or a fox, so my beagle and I went to investigate. As he stepped off the curb, he was bitten by a venomous snake. We rushed him to the emergency vet, and he survived. A few days later, I was telling a neighbor the story of the animal crying when we heard it again in the tree by her house. It was a young cat. She started feeding the cat and found a family to adopt her. They kept her a month or so, but she escaped back to my house. Since my family is allergic to cats, we could not bring her inside. We contacted the family who had adopted her, and they came to pick her up, but she did it again. When she came back, they had decided she didn’t want to live with them. She preferred to be outside. Since the weather was getting cold, I bought her a cat house for our screened-in porch and then a heater. At this point, she decided that she was ours, or at least she was Shiloh’s. It was clear that he was the reason she stayed.

Fast forward to Christmas, and we had a family visit with a Yorkie puppy that scared her off. We searched for weeks, and I left cat food outside for her. As we were leaving for a walk, Shiloh gobbled up her whole bowl of food. We walked 5 blocks, and he stopped at an empty lot. To my surprise, he opened his mouth and dumped all of her food on the ground. He sniffed a moment, then kept walking. I am convinced he smelled her at that lot and brought her food.  A few days later, she returned. Five years later she is still there being loved on by us and our neighbor.

Nala is so smart. She always walks along the curb of the road. She’ll follow us on our walk, but will only walk one block before returning home. Her favorite thing to do is greet and love on Shiloh when he goes outside.

Both came from challenging situations to our home. Both are about the same age, and I hope they have many years left together.