Back in November of last year, when Joy had first started working at the animal shelter, she came home one day telling me about two beautiful kittens that been brought in to the shelter. The lady who brought them found them, and could not keep them, but they were too young to adopt out and when she found out they’d most likely be put down if she left them, she took them back out with her. “You’re lucky,” Joy said to me jokingly, “one of them was a silver tabby.”

Joy has a weakness for silver tabbies – we both do – and the other kitten had been a smoke tabby, which I also have a fondness for… so yeah, it was probably a good thing the lady left with the little four week old kittens.

Except a few days later, she brought them back.

They really were too young to be alone, and the little smoke male wasn’t doing real well, so they came to our house for a few days for some extra care…

They were SOOO beautiful, and the little silver girl reminded us of our Nipsy. I think the only thing that managed to keep us from temptation was the fact that there were two of them, and we neither wanted two more cats, nor wanted to see them separated.

They had a great time at our house, and we had a great time with them. We named them Harry (for Harry Potter) and Saphire — Saffy for short.

They went from nervous, twitchy little semi wild little things (I called them ‘exploding dandelions’ because of the way they’d puff out, pop up in the air, and hiss when startled) to very cuddy little kittens, in just those few short days. It was very hard to take them back to the shelter. But we did.

About a week later, they were adopted out. Joy had some serious reservations about the person that adopted them, but we tried to ease our worries with the fact that at least they went together. And it seemed like maybe it wasn’t such a bad home after all — they came in to be spayed and neutered a couple of months later, and seemed healthy and happy. Maybe it had worked out for the best.

Last week Harry and Saffy were picked up as strays five miles from the address their owner had given when adopting them. He didn’t call the shelter looking for them. He didn’t return the message left on his voice mail that they were at the shelter. They were starving, emaciated, dehydrated, and covered in fleas.

In spite of all that, they were still the wonderful, sweet cats they’d been, and even more beautiful. They were completely devoted, leaning on each other and grooming. Again we had to resist the urge to bring them home and keep them safe — now even more than before it was just not an option, since we now have Calvin and Winter is, as we’ve mentioned before, very aggressive to other cats. The shelter is so full of cats right now, and we worried what would happen to them if they weren’t adopted before space ran out.

We’re relieved to say that Blue Ridge Humane Society came and took a bunch of cats last week, including Harry and Saffy. It’s not a permanent home yet, but it’s safety for them and they’ll get more exposure to potential adopters there. After all they’ve been through, they really deserve a great home and hopefully the chance to stay together. If anyone reading this might be looking to adopt two great cats, or knows someone who would be, please contact Blue Ridge Humane Society.

If they come through those shelter doors a fourth time, then we’re just going to have to buy a bigger house.