14 years ago I convinced Sean to go to the animal shelter so we could adopt a kitten. We had Stormy at the time and thought he might like a friend.

Sean agreed, thinking they would be closed since it was NYE.

They were not.

They also didn’t have any kittens at the shelter.

Sean noticed about three adult cats in some kennels. One of them had plastered herself up against the kennel door trying to get our attention. She was sticking her paws out and chirping at us.

Sean (the person who did not want a cat in this story) immediately went to her and said this was the one we should adopt.

And so we did. We named her Windy and she officially started our weather pet theme.

Stormy hated her for a few days and then they were best buds until he passed in 2008.

If you’ve ever met Windy, you know she’s a crazy friendly cat. We call her our 3rd dog, even though we had her before we had our dogs, we didn’t realize how dog-like she was until later. Here she is playing with Dewey 11 years ago. They had so many good times together.

Being dog-like, she is obviously very dog savvy. She’s been around for all of our years of fostering and she always told me very clearly when there was a dog that was not going to be cat-friendly. And then I’d never see her until that dog was adopted.

The ones she deems safe, she teases endlessly. In just enough of a cat way to get the dogs interested!

She is also a royal pita, begging for food all the time and colluding with the dogs to drive me crazy. I also think she’s secretly trying to use up her nine lives, as I’ve found her twice this week, in the bedroom alone with Mama Snow!

It’s hard to believe that she’s 14+ because she still acts like she did when she was a kid. Maybe with a bit more sleeping and less jumping but when she’s gotta hustle to escape out the front door (which she does at least once a week), you would never guess she’s in her mid-teens (mid-seventies in human years).

Time is so weird. It doesn’t feel like 14 years but what are 14 years supposed to feel like?

Happy Gotcha Day Woo! Whatever 14 years is supposed to feel like, you’ve made them so much fun with your never-ending antics and loving, sweet, personality.