New Family Member

A couple of months ago, a feral cat had kittens on our property. After separating them at weaning time and socializing them for a couple of weeks, I ran into the reality of the animal welfare system in Northwest Arkansas. The shelters are overflowing because people still have a rural mentality in a rapidly developing suburban/urban area. Animals are abandoned, not spayed or neutered, and treated in the cruelest of ways. And, unfortunately, there isn't a lot of support, funds, policies, and laws to help them all so a great deal of them are euthanized.

So, we took on the task of trying to adopt out the four kittens ourselves. The shelters were so crowded that they were beginning to euthanize kittens and puppies and begged foster "parents" to take in some of the kittens and puppies. I spoke to one such foster parent who had 40 kittens alone in her garage and was trying to adopt those out. That is the sad nature of the glut of unwanted animals in this area, and with attitudes like this, it is no surprise.

I took action. I drove them to my hometown, St. Louis, where there is NOT a glut of unwanted animals, but kittens like these are in demand. I took them to a veterinary clinic I know of and they adopted them out in less than a week. I decided after much deliberation that I would take one myself and introduced a new family member to my house of two elderly cats. My husband, his son, and I all had the same favorite kitten and were initially calling our new kitten "Adventure Boy" because he liked challenging himself. I've have a cat named Solomon and my husband's name is Jeremiah, so in keeping with a Biblical name, we're now calling this new member of our family Samson. It seems a fitting name for Adventure Boy, since Samson slayed a lion and ate honey from the carcass, cavorted with prostitutes, married twice outside his tribe, broke ropes that bound him, slayed 3000 men with the jawbone of a donkey, carried heavy city gates on his back, and eventually pushed an entire temple down with his bare hands (Judges 13 - 16).

Doesn't he seem like he could push a temple down?
Well, maybe not right now....