A New Family Member! #AnimalTales

Having thought about it long and hard, on Sunday we popped to Axhayes Adoption Centre, part of the Cats Protection League, in Exeter. We always had cats before we moved house and have missed having one in the new house. We were going just to investigate as we’ve always had kittens before and never adopted a cat. However, the people at Axhayes turned out to be really lovely and helpful and we came away having found ourselves reserved a cat!

We’d spent ages over the past weeks looking at the Axhayes cats on the website so it was almost like a celebrity encounter to finally come face to face with the likes of the gorgeous Augustus, Molly and wonderfully sad but equally gorgeous Shrimp.

While Holly was busy getting to know Val, something else was going on in one of the other pens. Kevin, who we’d had trouble persuading that a cat was a good idea, was getting to know a lovely grey tabby who had been named Cartman by the Centre (after the family who brought him in to them). I’m not really sure who chose who – as soon as the door of the pen was opened Cartman launched himself at Kev and we had trouble keeping him in place – he wanted to come home with us (other cats please note, this is an amazing technique, try it!).

We reserved Cartman there and then, with the idea of picking him up Wednesday this week….he’s here already! Kev managed to get away from work early yesterday, picked up Cartman and it’s already like he’s been with us forever. We anticipated a few teething problems as little was known about his past and he had been a bit “antsy” before the Centre neutered him. But, so far so good! He had quite a restless night, but with the high winds and all of the associated noise we’ve had, it’s hardly surprising. Today he’s just lounging around the place like he owns it….just like a cat should!