Allow me to introduce ... Dulce and Tres

Since cats are one of the topics to be discussed here, I'd better get around to introducing mine. They're both adopted from the Humane Association, and they demonstrate the joys of adopting a shelter animal as well as getting a grown or near-grown animal rather than a kitten or puppy.

Dulce, the tortoiseshell, was a stray picked up in the East Mountains during a blizzard. When we got her, she was extremely skinny, with such thin fur that at her initial checkup, the vet's assistant put "Domestic Short Hair" in the "breed" blank in her health file. My comment at the time was, "She'd never win any beauty contests, but she'd definitely get the 'Miss Personality' award" -- she really knew how to turn on the charm to get what she wanted. However, after a couple of months of living in a warm house with plenty of food, she filled in and fluffed up, and she's now a stunning, long-haired beauty queen.

Tres, the white cat with gold trim, was an adolescent cat when we got him, with many of the same traits as a human teenager, such as long legs that stuck out all over the place and a clumsiness that comes from not yet being used to the recent growth spurt. Dulce took him in like a good mama cat, giving him hunting lessons and washing his ears, both to keep them clean and to assert command. He's still long and skinny (he thinks he's a cheetah and loves to dash from one end of the house to the other), but at least he's not as clumsy as he used to be.