Leia the Stray Cat

In August, Craig found a stray cat outside of his work.  The cat ran under the car and Craig called out to her, "Here Kitty."  He didn't expect her to come but she ran straight to him!  He picked her up and she started purring and climbed up onto his shoulders.  We had been talking about getting a playmate for our cat, Luke, but hadn't gotten around to it.  Craig decided to bring her home.  We watched out for ads in Craigslist and the local paper without seeing anything.  She also had no collar so we figured she either didn't have owners or she didn't have owners that cared very much.  So she became our cat.

We talked about names for the kitty and being the nerds that we are we decided on Leia.  Luke and Leia our two cats.  Now we love Luke a lot but he just isn't a perfect cat.  He pukes all the time, he isn't very nice to people (us included sometimes), and he has seizures on occasion (obviously not his fault but it is scary to deal with).  Leia is not perfect either but she is very friendly to other people and us.  One bad thing about her is that she misses the litter box a lot and we find poop next to it instead of in it.  Very gross and annoying.  Leia has found a spot in our hearts though.


Now that I told you all the wonderful things about her and how much we love her on to the sad part of the story.  Last week, Craig was petting Leia as she was lounging on his chest and he noticed that Leia has a microchip.  We decided to do the right thing and we took her into the local Humane Society on Saturday.  We were hoping for the best (well, the best for us) since we wanted to keep her.  When the woman working opened our carrier she said, "I know this cat." Uh-oh.  " She took Leia out of the carrier and said, "Yep, this is Ricky Booby."  Leia is a unique cat.  She is all gray with a small amount of white on her neck, but what makes her really unique is the fact that she polydactyl.  Polydactyly is have extra fingers or toes.  Obviously, in Leia's case extra toes.  Since not many animals have extra toes she is easy to recognize.

It turns out that Leia's owner moved from her neighborhood and Leia jumped out of the truck.  We found her soon after this happened.  The owner has been coming into the Humane Society and calling often to see if she was brought in.  She actually used to work at the Humane Society and that is how she acquired Leia.  We learned that Leia's name previously was Ricky Booby.  I find this to be a very unfitting name for such a lovely cat.  The woman at the Humane Society is actually friends with the owner.  She called her up and gave her our phone number so she could call us and set up a time to pick up Leia  Leia came home with us until the owner can get her.


We set up a time to have her picked up yesterday and I was very upset all morning.  But low and behold the owner never showed up!  We called and left her a message about rescheduling but have not heard back from her yet.  Does the owner actually want her or not?


Craig called the Humane Society this morning to have them get a hold of the owner again.  We will see what happens and I will update you when we know what will happen.