After her cat Octopus died at the age of 9, Kelly Duignan was not necessarily ready to get a new pet. However, that changed when she was volunteering at the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS).
“I was not looking for a cat at all and, one day, I saw him in this cage toward the back of the room. He looked like a little lemur, kind of,” the queer 30-year-old said with a laugh. “And he has very unique markings on his face. So I was initially like, ‘Oh my God, he’s so pretty.’”
That black-and-white domestic longhair cat turned out to be Ouija.
Duignan told herself she would wait until the following week and, if he was still there, she would adopt him. That thought process turned around quickly.
“Two days later, I said, Whatever, I’m not waiting until next week. I can’t stop thinking about him. I really want to adopt him,” she recalled.
Since Duignan had two foster cats, she had to make sure Ouija would get along with other cats. The shelter put him in a room with another cat and they quickly learned he was “obsessed” with other cats.
However, Duignan’s foster cats did not like Ouija as much as Ouija liked them. This ended up impacting Duignan’s choice for adopting a second cat.
“I needed to adopt one that was really rambunctious so that was why I ended up getting Cosmo as a little boyfriend for him,” she said with a laugh, referencing the orange tabby domestic short hair. “That’s how they both came into my life.”
Duignan noted that the 3-year-old cats have contrasting personalities.
“Ouija somehow always knows whenever I’m upset and he does this weird, human sitting thing and it’s like he’s lounging on his back and his legs are straight up in the air,” she laughed. “He always does that if I’m upset. He’s not a very cuddly cat. He’s not a lap cat but he’s affectionate somehow to me still.
“Cosmo is a little bit more of the opposite and is super-chatty, wants to sleep on top of me and always be around me,” she added. “They’re both very friendly and social and like to be around other cats a lot.”
The cats also handle affection from their owner differently.
“Cosmo will let me know if I’m making him upset by petting him too much or bothering him and Ouija doesn’t really do that. Ouija will let me carry him around like a baby and Cosmo is a little more apprehensive about being held.”
Duignan noted that the two cats like to “wrestle.” She recalled that the previous owner had a kitten who was afraid of Cosmo because of this behavior.
“It’s good for Ouija because Ouija can handle it and he enjoys wrestling around and playing a lot. But if Ouija was any more timid or scared or anything like that, it would not work out well. Cosmo really needed a rough-and-tumble buddy and luckily that’s Ouija. But they’ll sit next to each other too and they’ll sometimes groom each other and it’s really cute when they do that.
“They’re just really good energies together,” she added.