Shiloh's Story

Born: Winter 2007

Tortoiseshell Cat

Shiloh has quite the story.  A little sad at first but she got a happy ending.

When we lived over in NS, my husband was overseeing the renovations of a Walmart, that was located an hour away.  Since most of the major reno. happened at night, that was when he would be working. These renovations were going on in Feb./March 2008 and every Friday, he would come home for the weekend, then I would drive him back on Sundays.  Now a few weeks into the renovations, one night a little kitten (few months old) made its way to the front of the store and pawed at the doors to try to get in.  My husband noticed the cat and since it was the start of the shift he took the cat and placed it in one of his co-workers Jeep till his shift was over (couldn't watch/ pay attention to a cat inside the store while he was working).  At the end of the night he took the cat, heading back to his hotel where the staff were quite taken to this little fur ball and her story of trying to get inside the Walmart to get warm. They agreed to let her stay in the room with him until he found it a home. 

Cue phone call to me...  Can we keep her?

At this time we had two dogs and one cat and I said no way.  No more.  That sure doesn't seem to stick when I say that:) It was a Wednesday when he called me, I would be going to pick him up the next day to take him home "without" a cat.  He kept insisting that she was friendly, small and just well adorable.  This coming from a guy who never thought he would be a cat person.  I still said no.

So the next day I travelled to the hotel and when I arrived around 2pm the room was pitch black, and my husband was half asleep so I asked, "so where's this cat?".  He lifted up the covers and here was the cat curled up asleep beside him. I went to go and pet her and she did one of her little meows and she got right up and came and curled up beside me.  Now come on!! Did you have to be that cute that fast?  

Later on came to find out her favourite things in the room were playing with/shredding the daily newspaper and also unravelling the toilet paper in the bathroom.  The hotel staff had also given her toys which were scattered throughout the room.  I forgot to mention this before, but what I usually ended up doing was I would drive up to the hotel on Thursdays, stay the night while my husband was at work then drive home in the morning. Before my husband left for the night he told me that if we weren't going to take her that one of the hotel staff had a cousin that was interested.  So that night I debated whether or not to keep her.  Now my husband claims my mind was made up that first moment I saw her. Which might/might not be the truth..... 

I named her Shiloh.

She still loves being under the covers.

P.S.  The morning before we heading home with Shiloh, my husband said that night they found a box of kittens that looked like Shiloh, left abandoned behind the store next to the dumpster.  I believe there were five kittens in total.  All boys.  Shiloh, was the only girl in the lot and the only smart one to travel to find better shelter/warmth.. Typical males. :)  Happy to say all were saved and taken to the local shelter where they found homes.

Fun Fact: "Cats of this coloration are believed to bring good luck in the folklore of many cultures.  In the United States, these are sometimes referred to as money cats."  We're still waiting for the "money" bit to kick in :p