Five Is More Than Enough

I’m not exactly sure when our home turned into a petting zoo, but here we are.

It started with our two Shih Tzus, Aslan and Koda. When Aslan suddenly went blind, he needed more help finding his way through the world. Of course, we adjusted because that’s what you do when you love an animal. You help them learn a new way to live, and you love them through it.

Then there was the kitten I rescued from a neighbor’s house. The mother cat went to live with someone else, but they were going to take both cats to the pound. I couldn’t let that little one-eyed kitten go to the pound, so naturally, she came home with me.

For years, I had dreamed about having another orange kitten. I once had an orange cat I dearly loved, and I never forgot how special he was. His name was Neo.

Then a family discovered a litter of kittens behind a baseball field. They had been abandoned, and their mother was nowhere in sight. They still needed to be bottle-fed. Three of them were orange, and somehow one of those little orange babies landed right in my lap. I named him Henry Googles because of the perfectly round white circles that highlight his beautiful green eyes.

You would think that would have been enough—and it was.

But just days after Henry arrived, a scrawny, bright-orange cat appeared at our house. He had stayed with us briefly two and a half years earlier, but another family had taken him in. Later, we saw that the family had moved and left all their cat supplies on the sidewalk with a sign that said “Free.” I guess they couldn’t take him with them, but how awful.

He had been gone for two and a half years, yet there he was, as if he had simply decided it was time to come home. Now he has a collar, regular meals, and apparently a permanent address.

How did this happen?

There used to be a television show called Eight Is Enough. Well, I can now say with complete confidence that five is enough. In fact, five is more than enough!

Still, when I look around at all these little lives under our roof, I know exactly how it happened. One animal at a time needed a home, a little extra care, or someone willing to love it—and I have never been very good at saying no to an animal who needs me.

I now

tell people they are welcome to come over, but they should know that visiting our house is a little like visiting a petting zoo.