I adopted a cat named Copper from an animal shelter in late October. She was a beautiful brown, gray and tan tabby. She was three years old, and she had spent her entire life living in the shelter, in a cage.
The reason she had been in the shelter so long, the adoption director told me, was because she didn’t “show well.” Meaning that when people came to visit her if they were considering adopting her, she was too shy and didn’t socialize well with them.
And the director was right, she was incredibly shy. When I went to the shelter to meet her, they opened her cage door, and I stuck out my hand very gingerly for her to smell. She backed away and walked farther back into the rear corner of the cage. So we didn’t connect at all.
But the thing is, she was one of the most beautiful cats I’ve ever seen. She was like a supermodel of cats. Just sleek, gray, with white whiskers, and the most precious, sweet, knowing, wise, vulnerable, wistful, playful face you’ve ever seen. Every human emotion was captured in her incredible visage. So I was smitten.
The adoption director, Lisa, warned me that she might not open up to me for a really long time, and that maybe I should adopt a more friendly, easy going cat. Kind of a “plug ‘n play” deal, is what I figured she meant. But knowing that Copper had been living in a cage for three years, I was determined to rescue her, and to give her a better life. I had grown up with a dog and I loved animals, and they loved me, so I figured it was only a matter of time before Copper and I were best friends.
I brought her home in a cat carrier. We took a Lyft from the shelter on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to my apartment in Astoria, Queens. But everything went wrong, pretty much from the start. When I opened the cat carrier door to let her out, she wouldn’t come out. She must have been so scarred from life in a cage all those years that she just couldn’t understand the concept of freedom, that she was now able to go anywhere in my home she wanted to.
Finally, after about 12 hours, she exited the cat carrier in the middle of the night. But where did she go? Straight under my bed, where she spent the rest of her time for the next few weeks, hiding from me, and hiding from the world.
At first I put her food and water bowls in the kitchen, but she still wouldn’t leave her hiding spot under the bed. So I brought her food and water to her under the bed. And man, was food a problem! She didn’t eat for the first three days she was with me. I asked my mom, who’s an animal lover and has two cats and a dog, what to do, and my mom suggested fresh food.
So I tried everything that cats are known to like. Sardines. Tuna. Meatballs that I had made for my spaghetti dinner. And chicken salad from the local grocery store. Nope! Nada. No way. She just wasn’t going for it. She wasn’t eating at all, and I was starting to get really worried.
Finally I tried some “Greenies,” which are cat dental treats that are supposed to be good for their teeth. And she ate them. So I started feeding her a whole plate full of Greenies for each meal. I had purchased a fancy, prescription dry food from a pet place online, but she didn’t eat that either. So for the first few weeks, she ate cat dental treats only. Greenies. I was just happy she was eating.
She stayed under the bed for about three weeks, except when she sneakily ventured out to relieve herself in the litter box in the kitchen. I never figured out how she took care of that bodily function so secretly, without me ever seeing her cross the hall to the kitchen, but she did, and she was back under the bed as soon as she was finished with her business.
The first change came about three weeks in. She started leaving her spot under the bed and walking around the living room a little bit, usually while I was watching TV or listening to music. Then she started hanging out on the blue area rug in front of the TV, and rolling around on it, and just being playful and doing cat things. She also would hang out on the white area rug in the hallway in front of the bathroom, and roll around on that too.
I can’t tell you how relieved I was just to see her out and about, and not hiding under the bed anymore. I had been so afraid that the trauma of her first three years of life in a shelter had affected her so much that she would never be able to socialize, and that we would never connect. But now she was out and about, so I felt better.
Petting was still out of bounds. Every time I would approach her to try and pet her, she would scurry away. I could get to within about four feet of her, and then she had to go. So there was still a lot of work to be done, but with her moving about the apartment I felt confident we were on the right track.
She also hung out on the windowsill in my bedroom, and the windowsill in the living room. And there was one night when I was laying in bed with my arm hanging over the side of the bed, and I felt something touch my arm. It was just for a brief second, and when I looked over, she was already a few feet away.
But I knew it was her paw that had touched me. So that was awesome. I like to think of it as “First Contact.” Because that was the first time we actually touched each other. I was a little shaken, but I felt great too, and I hoped there would be more, a lot more, to come.
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A major change came on December 8th, a Friday night, when Copper the cat started hanging out on the living room loveseat. I would be on the opposite, three-seat couch, and she would be on the loveseat, just hanging out, rolling around, and generally chilling out.
This was incredible. We were hanging out in the same room, and for the first time I felt like I really had a cat. I still hadn’t pet her yet, but at least we were chilling together now. Woo-hoo!
She also physically jumped onto the arm of the three-seat couch I was chilling on, and hung out there for awhile, and then jumped off. I had also finally been able to move her food and water bowls into the kitchen. So one day when I was making a smoothie in the kitchen, she poked her head in, looked at me, went to her food bowl for a second, and then left. The fact that she was now taking risks with me, and moving around the apartment, made me feel that it was only a matter of time before we were besties.
Over the next several days she became a little more reserved again, and stopped hanging out in the living room quite as much when I was in there. She would now hang out on a pile of used clothes that were on top of a lounge chair in the far corner of my bedroom. So I was in the living room, listening to music or watching TV, and she was in the bedroom, on the clothes on the chair. We were both chilling out, but just in separate rooms. And of course, still no petting. She wouldn’t let me get close enough.
The most important thing that happened during that period occurred around 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. I ordered some things on Amazon, and I realized that I absolutely immediately that exact second needed to have two dedicated bowls for her food and her water.
I had been feeding her out of an Ikea plate for her food, and an Ikea bowl for her water. It was cheap kitchenware that I had gotten at a Paramus, New Jersey Ikea about 20 years earlier. But I realized she deserved a much better, more dignified eating experience.
So I ordered the bowls, dedicated bowls, and I thought to myself, finally she’ll have what she really deserves as a Queen, as a cat, and as a beautiful lady. Eventually I replaced those bowls with even bigger bowls from Amazon, and my Goddess had what she needed.
Over the next few weeks, we mainly hung out in separate rooms, me in the living room and she in the bedroom. And I started to get worried again that we would never actually connect. There had still been no petting whatsoever, and she still shied away from my hand whenever I extended it.
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And then it happened. At 10:02 p.m., Sunday night, January 7th, the night of the Golden Globe Awards, I pet Copper the cat for the first time! She was on the pile of clothes on the chair in my bedroom, and I went in there and showed her some treats in my hand, and I advanced very slowly toward her. I laid the treats about six inches in front of her on top of the clothes. She made a noise as I got close, like she was scared, but it wasn’t a loud noise, more of a half-hearted protest. But she held her ground as I lay the treats down. Then I retreated and let her eat the treats in peace.
But about 20 minutes later I returned with more treats, and I placed them very very close to her mouth this time. No peep from her at all. So I went for it. I slowly, very slowly, extended my hand, underhand style, and then flipped it over and put my thumb on her forehead and starting caressing her behind the ears and massaging her scalp. Then I started petting her body too.
OMG! It was absolutely incredible. After nearly three months, and an extended, lover’s dance of coexistence and romance that we had been doing, I finally touched her, and she, by extension, touched me back. And we connected. We bonded. We loved.
I was petting her head fairly softly in the beginning, but then more firmly, and she loved it. Her eyes had an expression of love and gratefulness and sadness all wrapped in one. But she was happy now, I was sure of it. She wasn’t sad. I kept petting her and petting her for about five minutes. It was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve had in a very long time, and the best thing that ever happened between me and Copper.
Eventually she jumped off the chair and walked away. I tried to get her to come back to me but she had had enough. One time I put my hand down low, underhand style, and she advanced toward it, and touched my hand with her nose and smelled it, but then she walked away again.
So I took a break too, and I went back to the living room. I felt great, like I had actually achieved Nirvana, or moved to a higher, transcendent, enlightened state of being. I had been waiting for this for nearly three months, and on this night I finally pet my incredibly beautiful cat Copper, who I love with all my heart, and it was totally incredible. Oh my God thank you Jesus.
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About 20 minutes later I broke down and said why not it, I might as well give it another shot, why wait? So I went into the bedroom, and I walked over to her again. She was lying on top of the pile of clothes. My mother had told me that she had probably picked the clothes as her spot because she recognized my scent, and that she had probably hid under the bed for three weeks to be near me, instead of in the closet or somewhere else.
So I brought a little food with me, I put it down near her on the chair, and I started petting her again. I pet her and pet her and pet her. Then she jumped onto the floor, and I stood over her and started petting her again, and stroking her back, and stroking her head. We were communing together like two equal beings sharing love.
It felt like nearly three months of distance and separation all built up together into one moment of pure love as we finally touched each other.
Eventually she even rolled over onto her side and let me pet her belly. It was incredible. She was totally submitting to me, but it wasn’t a submission to my will, it was a submission to our relationship, and to the love and the life that we would now share together. She was opening her heart to me, is what she was doing. I felt blessed. Truly blessed.
Whenever she would move away from my touch a little, I would say “come to me Copper, come to me Copper,” and she would return for more petting and mutual love. And I kept repeating “I love you Copper, it’s okay, Copper, I love you Copper, I love you.”
Because I knew she had been through so much in her life, and for her to open herself up to me like that must have been incredibly difficult. So I was grateful. And happy. Grateful and happy, is what I was.
I had been mostly standing over her, so eventually I sat on the floor with her and kept petting. And I must have pet her and played with her for a good 15 to 20 minutes. And the whole time, there was an incredible energy in the air. I felt lightheaded, like the room was spinning a little, but in a warm, wholesome, positive way.
So I felt like things between me and Copper were just beginning to take off, and I loved her more than ever, and we finally connected, which is what I always wanted when I got a cat. I was still all jazzed up, but I figured I’d see what happened next. We could only go forward, is what I thought, not back. So we’d see. All I knew was, I loved Copper now more than ever.
The next day was more of the same. I pet her for about five minutes in the afternoon, and she rolled fully onto her back, not just her side, with all four paws sticking up in the air, and just gave herself over to happiness, love, and life.
My mother told me that when dogs and cats roll over onto their backs and put all four paws up in the air, it’s a sign of great trust. So I was ecstatic. It was great. I think she’d been so starved for affection after all these years living in a horrible cage, that she was just dying to connect.
And I’ve been so moved by this whole experience that I’ve been listening to love songs as I write this. And the first one I selected on Spotify, the first song that came to mind, was “Baby, Come to Me,” by Patti Austin and James Ingram. It’s a beautiful song, it really is.
I think the chorus really summarizes how I’ve felt about Copper these past three months. Now that’s it’s finally happened, and I’ve pet her and we’ve connected, I can’t imagine living without her, which is just what the song says:
Baby, come to me, let me put my arms around you
This was meant to be and I’m oh so glad I found you
Need you ev’ry day, gotta have your love around me
Baby, always stay ‘cause I can’t go back to livin’ without you
So that’s the story of me and Copper. It’s a true love story, human and animal, or person and cat, or whatever, it doesn’t matter, it’s true love. It was a three month saga that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. So regardless of what happens over the next few days, or weeks, or months, there’s no going back.
We’re bonded now, Copper and I, and we’re going to be in each other’s lives for a long time to come.
And for that I’m very grateful.
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