I’ve always thought of myself as a horse and dog per­son. When I was grow­ing up, my fam­ily always had a pas­sel of cats to go along with the herd of horses and mess of dogs. I liked the cats, but in my adult life, I sim­ply never thought about hav­ing one. The five I’ve had changed all that.

Fer­gus, a crea­ture so fright­en­ingly intel­li­gent that I think of him as Fele­in­stein, showed up as a five-week-old kitten.

Ninotchka aka Fang, was cur­mud­geonly, manip­u­la­tive, and all-but-toothless but beloved. RIP, old girl.

Cor­nelia, the cat that started the collection.

That’s Spot on the left, shar­ing a nap with Cor­nelia. He showed up in the back yard one day, starv­ing. I said he absolutely was not com­ing in the house. Yeah, right. He turned out to be the best old boy cat in the world. I miss him. RIP, sweet boy.