His Name's Louie, Not Gus

Sometimes an animal will haunt you.

We went to the animal shelter to look at Gus, a big, loveable neutered male cat. I loved everything about him except that he was declawed. Because all of my cats venture outside, they need claws.

That Saturday, we left the shelter with a kitten and a memory of Gus.

The odds of an adult cat being adopted from a shelter are low. The adult cats in the adoption room were there for a variety of reasons -- owner moving, owner divorcing. Over the weekend, as we played with the kitty, we thought, "Why not give Gus a chance?"

A call to the shelter revealed he was still there. When I adopted him, the shelter worker said, "By the way, they called him Louie." The shelter staff had given him the name Gus.