Finley, The Domestic Shorthair

In June 2007 our first cat, Sammy, went missing. One day, she slipped out of the house, walked away and never found her way back home again. I printed flyers and taped them to the mail boxes, asked businesses if I could hang a flyer on their pin boards, and went to the local shelter every other day. But there was no sign of Sammy.

One late afternoon, I walked into the shelter again. There was still no lead that Sammy was seen somewhere; she was nowhere to be found. Katelynn looked at all the cats and kittens, said: “Mom, I miss Sammy. But can we have another cat?” I looked at some of the cats. And there was a cute, three-year-old Mainecoon. I had my eye on her, while I called Kevin. Kevin wasn’t so sure if this was a good idea. If Katelynn really wants to get another cat, it would be better to have a younger cat. I was still on the phone with him, when all of a sudden, a small paw reached for me. A little grayish/white kitten meowed, as he wanted to say: “Hey, how about me?!” I rubbed his little paw with my thumb and I fell in love with this little stinker.

After all the paperwork was done, we named him Socks. Socks was actually fairly big for his age. At that time, the shelter estimated him to be four months. But he looked more like a six months old kitten. A couple of days later, I realized I didn’t like “Socks”, because it was a common name. Kevin and I were thinking about a name, when it popped into my head that we could name him after a player or former player of our local, professional basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks. “Dirk” and “Mr. Nowitzki” sounded silly. “Nash” was out of the question. I came up with Bradley (Shawn Bradley). And then Kevin had the idea to name him Finley (Michael Finley). I really liked the name “Finley”. On that day, Finley got his permanent name.

Now, eight years later he is still an awesome cat. He definitely is a character. Finley will let us know, if and when he wants to be petted by rubbing his side on our calves. He can’t stand it, to be picked up: All claws come out, while spreads his ‘fingers’ and ‘toes’. But he loves catnip. OMG, does he love it. Finley is also a very good hunter. At this time of the year, we have to be careful, he’s not bringing any baby bunnies and rats into the house. He feels privileged to offer us food. So, we need to tell him to leave his ‘trophies’ outside.

April 2015

Finley (2007 – 2017)