Inky and the Kenessons: Furry Friends Fur-Ever

“We’ve had cats in our homes our entire lives,” says Christine. “I saw a photo of Inky (then named Kat) on the Furry Friends website, was immediately drawn in by her sweet face and bright eyes, and went to meet her at the shelter. She was shy, but very playful with us. And when I looked into her eyes, I just knew. (She’s sweet and quirky and the name seems to fit her. She also answers to Inky Blinky and Inky Stinky).

“We have a senior cat named Hopscotch, so Inky lived in a bedroom for the first week, got used to us, and got used to hearing Hopscotch meow and sniff under the door. The first day Inky stretched out against my leg on the couch and started purring and making biscuits. She had a few treats and played with a feather wand, and while she accepted my pets, she was still easily spooked. Even now, after several months, she still has some shy episodes. But overall, she’s very loving and stays glued to our sides.

“We adopted Inky several months after the loss of my cat, Matilda, who had been with me for nearly 20 years. We knew Matilda was irreplaceable, but we wanted to open our hearts and home to another cat in need of a family. Inky has brought so much happiness and silliness into our lives. Being 1 ½ years old, she’s full of energy and spark. She has the tiniest meows that absolutely delight us, a happy question mark tail, does copious slow blinks, and the strongest head bunts I’ve ever encountered! 

“Since Hopscotch and Matilda were together for 8 years and were fairly well bonded, she ‘tolerates’ Inky, and they maintain a mostly civil detente. For her part, Inky focuses on us and on playing. In fact, she plays with everything! She loves wand toys with string and feathers and catnip toys. She’s interested in anything that we have in our hands and plays with my husband Alex’s D&D dice, rolling them up and down the hallway.  

“Inky loves being petted and brushed. If we sit on the couch, she’ll sit beside us to get ‘back and forth pets’ (we rub in the direction of her fur and then against it) on her back. She also enjoys sitting on our legs and making the sharpest of biscuits. We’re still working on getting her used to being picked up. It’s slow going, but she’s making progress.

“One thing she does that we haven’t experienced before is bite on the cardboard flaps of boxes. We say she’s ‘punching tickets’ when she does it. Every box that comes into the house gets this special treatment from Inky!

“At night, Inky likes sleeping in whichever cat bed Hopscotch isn’t occupying at the moment. She’ll also crawl into bed with us several times a week and sleep against our sides, but she tends to find new spots fairly often.”

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Furry Friends Fur-Ever Stories are compiled and written by Nomi Berger who is the bestselling author of seven novels, one work of non-fiction, two volumes of poetry, and hundreds of articles. She is a volunteer writer for Furry Friends in Vancouver, WA and also volunteers her writing skills to animal rescue groups in Canada and the USA.