Introduce yourself and your cats here...

[Ari Moore]

Let's get to know each other - tell us about yourself and your cat friends. How many cats do you live with? Where did they come from? Do you work with feral cats too?

[Ari Moore]

I already kinda talked about this on the home page, but I'll repost here for posterity, and to start off our introductions. My partner Shira and I didn't adopt cats for a long time because we didn't want to choose cats over cows, and weren't sure we could feed cats a vegan diet. After all, if we love animals the last thing we would want to do is hurt cats by feeding them unhealthy food! Finally we read enough and met enough happy healthy vegan cats that we felt okay about adopting - and now we live with three rescued vegan cats, Sid, Zora, and Snow.

Until recently, we were living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NYC (now we live in Ithaca, NY). We met Zora one day on the sidewalk outside our apartment; she was skinny and very dirty and crying. We picked her up and an even smaller kitten, so small she was still wobbly, came running at her cries. We named her Siddhartha (Sid for short) and took them both in. The vet said they were the same age and that they were probably sisters, and that Sid was probably the runt of the litter, which would explain the little tear in her ear, and her dependence on Zora. They've been with us now since November 2005, so that means they've been vegan for almost three years now.

Snow came to us in February this year, crying at our back window. It was freezing cold outside but most of the feral cats in our neighborhood have feline leukemia or FIV or worms or all three, so we were worried about her getting Sid and Zora sick, and we didn't feel the time was right to adopt another cat. She had two relatives with her; we decided we'd try to bring all three of them in and put them in a quarantine spot until we could get them adopted or taken by a no-kill shelter. But then her family stopped coming, so we waited for them to come back - and they didn't. And it just got colder and colder.

Then one night there was a huge snowstorm. The next morning we ran to the window full of regret and fear, and called to her. She'd been taking shelter in a shallow basement window arch all night, waiting for the snow to stop. Her left ear had been so badly frostbitten the tip of it had apparently cracked right off. When she heard us call she came running and bounded right in the window and into our arms, putting her cold wet little paws up on us and demanding hugs. We fell in love with her and when her vet check-up showed she was incredibly, perfectly healthy, we just couldn't say no and adopted her, too.

[Marketa]

The story of Snow made me cry... It's so awesome you called her, and took in!

[Ari Moore]

Yeah, I can't believe it took us so long! I regret we didn't bring her in sooner, so she could have kept her poor ear. It was a real lesson in compassion for me. And now I don't know what we'd do without her!

Marketa, feel free to introduce yourself and your kitty here, too! I'd love to hear other people's stories. We have some new members on the board, too. If we introduce ourselves we can get to know each other a bit - if you're all interested. :)

[Marketa]

I wanna write the story here soon. There is a news, we have another cat, Kokeshi's older brother. I brought him home yesterday, he's the sweetest cat ever. I'll write about both of them as soon as I find some free time...
Take care,
Marketa

[Ari Moore]

So cool! Congratulations to you and to Kokeshi's lucky older brother! How wonderful for them both to have found you. :)

[Marketa]

Okay, I'm gonna write this in pieces, otherwise I wouldn't do it at all. Where the time goes? Here we go ---- the intro:

The story of me, Kokeshi & Yukio

We've never had animals at home when I was little, and younger... We loved animals, but sort of all knew it wouldn't be ideal to have an animal (I wanted a dog) in a small apartment in the city. When I became vegetarian at the age 15 I started to love animals in a different way. I feel respect, and compassion towards all animals, and can't understand how I was able to eat them. Well, until I was 15 I never really thought about it. So far I consider becoming a herbivore the best decision of my life. It's NORMAL not to eat animals. It's not something extravagant or rebellious, it's completely natural.

My brother joined me immediately, and we became vegetarians at the same time. I'm lucky my parents were, and are supportive, although they eat fish from time to time (maybe twice a year or something), and my mom was so eager to create tasty, and healthy meals for us. Now, we share recipes, and advice each other on how to cook this, how to prepare that. Sure, we are the weird ones in our family (meaning the "wide" family, including grandparents, aunts, etc.) the ones who eat birdseeds... But who cares, we are the normal ones.

After three years, we became even crazier, and chose a vegan diet - who needs milk in adulthood, and what's more, milk of other species?!

When I was 20 we found a little ginger and white kitten in front of our country house. The neighbors said it's the last kitten that survived, its brothers and sisters were killed by people from the village or by their dogs. My mom, and I looked at each other and said, okay, we have to take him. He was too cute, and tiny. We brought him to Prague, and were worried, what my dad is gonna say. He loved him. We called him Kocour which means a "boy cat" in Czech. A year after I moved out into my apartment, and would see Kocour on weekends in the country. That is how our love for cats begun.

I met my husband when I was 23. Dylan ate meat, but I fell in love with him anyway, and could tolerate his meat eating from time to time. I would't stand him eating meat at home though. When he was younger, he was a vegetarian, but gave up from health reasons. After three months of being together he decided to go vegan. I didn't force him, it was his decision, and he's happy about it. .....And Dylan loves cats!

[Ari Moore]

"So far I consider becoming a herbivore the best decision of my life."
I so identify with this - my only regret about going vegan is that I didn't figure it out a lot sooner. :)

Thank you for telling this story!

[Marketa]

I don't know if I ever finish the story of me and my cats I started...:(
I just found out last week that our Yukio, Kokeshi's older brother has cats' AIDS!! :( I'm so sad. He's been with us for three weeks now, and wouldn't get better after antibiotics, he has a cold, and his gums are bleeding, and red. So I took him to the vet again, and said I don't think he's getting better, and they did some bloodwork, and told me he has AIDS. It's incurable, and Ko can get it as well. I have to say though, that he seems better mentally, he started to play with Kokeshi, and sleeps on the bed with us.The vet told me his organs are fine, so we just have to try to cure his gums --- he's taking some pills now.
Also his nose bleeds! We kept finding drops of blood everywhere, and we thought it was from his mouth, but it actually is his nose.
Well we just have to hope Kokeshi will be strong enough not to get it too. I got some herbal supplement for cats' vitality support.
Oh, and finally I was able to order Vegecat, and Vegekit! I'm so excited, I have to look up some recipes, and get ready for transformation...
WIsh us good luck, please!

[Ari Moore]

Poor Yukio! Good luck to you and the kitties, I really hope they'll be okay.

Since Kokeshi needs to be very strong, please be sure you get his urine pH tested at the vet frequently so it stays in a safe range, 5.9-6.4 - so he can avoid health problems. This is especially important with boy cats who go vegan...

[Marketa]

Thank you Ari. I hope he will have a good life despite his condition. If he won't do well on vegan diet, I'll do fifty-fifty ratio.

I will have them both tested regularly, since I want them both be as strong as possible...

[Amy]

My foray into being a vegan cat person began in 2004. Prior to that, I was devoutly a canine person and never even considered having a cat because of the obvious conflicts with my ethics. All that changed when a scraggly, half-dead cat wouldn't move out of the middle of the road when I approached him in a car. Oz, so he became known to me, had some kind of previous trauma to his jaw so he had difficulty eating and chewing, hind legs that didn't quite work right, and hyperthyroidism which kept him skinny the entire nine months I got to share my life with him.

After taking him directly to the vet and getting rid of as many fleas a possible, I made my first trip to the grocery store to stock up for my new friend. Kitty litter, pan, scoop, and toys were all in the basket when I turned my attention to the food isle. I stood there, desperately reading label after label trying to decide who should be sacrificed for this poor half-starved creature waiting for me at home. Depressed and disgusted with myself, I picked up some soy creamer (which he hated) and went home to do tons of research. All of this resulted in reading Obligate Carnivore, discovering that nutritional yeast was a necessity, and having a burgeoning Evolution food bill.

When Oz finally couldn't hang on any longer, he left a huge hole in my life, not to mention everything I needed to save someone else. In an attempt to make some good come of not being able to save Oz, I decided that too many other unloved cats were waiting out there for a human to care for them.

This is how Sadie came home with me from the shelter in 2005. She is a beautiful Coon Cat who has taken on the roll of matriarch to the growing pride. Her constitution is stalwart, and she's been healthy as the proverbial ox ever since.

Gavin shortly followed. He's a short-haired grey (Russian Blue?) who was found behind an air conditioning unit as a baby in the heat of summer. A guitarist I was playing with at the time called and asked if I could take him in because the person who had found him couldn't keep him.

Then came Samhain, my little calico. She was a baby crying under my truck on a cold night in November. I had to cox her out with toys--food was not interesting enough.

And then Harry (of Potter fame) was captured by my dog, Bonham, out behind my greenhouse. Bonham was just barking and barking and had no idea what to do with this little hissing fluff ball. He got his name because of a wound on his forehead that I thought would scar but didn't. But he's the fluffiest of them all; so the name still fits. Harry is the only one that I've had urinary issues with. He had to have reconstructive surgery to remove his penis last year. I hated having it done, but after two middle-of-the-night trips to the emergency room and way too many close-calls, I didn't know how else to keep him alive. More on him in the proper forum. . .

Then, last year, there was a feral moma and four little babies out in the garden taking shelter under a wheelbarrow I had placed up against the fence. Molly, the mother and another calico, was so thin that I'm surprised the kittens had anything at all to eat. She still lives with me and is cool with being an indoor cat so long as you don't try to touch her. Feeding her, talking to her. . that's fine. But don't make a move like you want to pet her in any way.

The kittens all had to be de-wormed and have had chronic sinus infections (herpes, the vet thinks). They ended up like this:

Athena - a lovely little tortoiseshell, was placed in a conventional home, and I've never quite been able to forgive myself. But she is growing, healthy and doing well.

Janie - one of the two tuxedo twins, still lives with me and is about 9 months old now. Rambunctious and playful as all kittens should be.

Alice - the runt and other tuxedo was actually left out overnight the evening of their discovery. Despite my repeatedly walking the fence line, I didn't find her until about noon the next day. She has been the slowest to recover and always a little undersized. I had a huge scare a few months ago when I thought she was going to loose her eye to a corneal ulcer. The ophthalmologist was shocked by how quickly she responded to treatment, though, and she still has both eyes, though the one is very scarred. Oh, and she is most assuredly the troublemaker.

Frankie - a beautiful, blue-eyed, Siamese-looking fellow. He made the move with me, but succumbed to something shortly thereafter. The hospital tells me it was either lymphoma or FIP, neither of which is curable. His heart just got slower and slower while he was in the ICU, and he just faded away. That was just last month, and I'm still not dealing with it very well.

So, for those of you keeping count (and still reading after all of that), yup, that's seven vegan cats. Five of them have been vegan since kitten-hood (well, two of them are still kittens). Sadie from the shelter and Molly from the streets being the exceptions. I think they were both about two-years-old when they came to live with me and haven't had a bit of trouble.

[Ari Moore]

Hi Amy, thank you so much for introducing yourself and your cat family - what a group! I'm so sorry you've just lost Frankie. My thoughts are with you - I know how hard it can be to lose an animal friend.