My family has been rescuing cats for as long as I can remember. I grew up next to a dairy farm in upstate New York, and since I was a little girl, there were always cats that would wander onto our property. My Mom in particular loved cats, and she would always feed and take care of any feline that would show up looking for a meal and a safe place to spend the night.

My whole family, Mom, Dad, myself and my sister, all fell in love with the cats that would show up at our door looking for help. Along the way, we lived with quite a few felines, some becoming beloved members of the family. (I always like to say we live with our animals, I don’t feel like we “have” or “own” our pets, because they are part of the family.)

Sparkle, a black and white “Tuxedo cat” and the family’s most recent adoption, had quite a rocky road before she came to live with our family. She belonged to our neighbors, and when they fell on tough times, they couldn’t care for her as before. Sparkle (named for her exceptionally bright and sparkly eyes) would hang around at our back door, looking for food and a warm bed. One day Mom realized Sparkle was pregnant and feared what would happen to her when the neighbors moved.

The neighbors moved away and left Sparkle behind, so Mom decided to bring her inside to live with the family. That made a grand total of four rescued cats living in my family’s not so big house in the rural Hudson Valley (Sparkle’s kittens were given to the local humane society and Sparkle was spayed, and is now solely an indoor cat.)

The small home I grew up in sometimes feels like it’s bursting at the seams with cats. Sparkle, rescued in 2000, is now about ten years old and living a life of leisure in our home. She joins sisters Petey and Puddin’ who are now both fourteen years old (yes, not a typo, this female cat is named Petey.)

Fourteen years ago, I dearly loved a cat named Sugar, who gave birth to a set of kittens: one the color of a bowl of dark chocolate pudding (hence Puddin’) and the other Tabby cat so aggressive I named her Petey, before the vet told me she was actually a female! Sugar went out one day before the kittens were weaned, and was hit by a car on the major highway in front of our house.