copyright Christine Price

I'm a volunteer at my local SPCA* in their Cat TLC Program. Every year in the spring "Kitten Season" arrives, and staff and volunteers rally forces and valiantly prepare to greet the hundreds of unwanted kittens who will arrive at the Shelter's door. It can be an achingly disheartening time. We watch the adoption rate for our adult cats take a plunge because most people want kittens. And we watch many precious kittens, just beginning their lives, get passed over, again and again, because they happen to be older, sick, shy or "homely." The hard truth is that there are simply not enough homes to go around and space at the Shelter is finite.

2009 copyright Nedda Wittels

Does your cat ignore you for the first 24 hours after you return from a trip? Does your dog or bird stop eating while you are gone? Do animals who normally get along begin to fight? Do they start to get upset when your suitcase comes out? Do you worry about them when you have to travel?

copyright Jean Hofve, DVM

It's the season for giving, and we all have good intentions when shopping for truly special gifts for our loved ones. Sometimes, we have visions of them opening a beautiful box with an adorable kitten inside, or of covering their eyes and leading them into a room where a puppy or a cat wearing a big bow is waiting. We aren't to blame—we have these very images of holiday serenity lingering from our own childhood. With a pet, it seems we can give the gift of unconditional love, especially to a child.

Keisha (which means the favored one) was truly the “kitty of my heart”. She came to me when she and her sister Portia were only 10 weeks. They are both beautiful and I loved them both dearly, but Keisha was special. She bequeathed to me many many gifts and awakened in me the true essence of my heart and all the wonderful gifts it contains: joy, love, beauty, sweetness, and pain and sorrow that comes with that loss.