#charlie fosters dogs before her but he has never fully adopted one

[cowboysuperhero]

tonight's art offering: charlie's future dog, winona! he fosters her for about six months, trying and failing to get her adopted, before giving in and adopting her himself, making her his first actual pet. alistaire is less than enthused at the prospect of a large slobbery dog inhabiting his apartment, but winona very quickly grows on him, especially after she bonds with his cat enemy of the state.

[pixelburied]

excuse the cropped weirdly pictures; my family/pet's foster parents are great at snapping a sneaky picture of me curled into an unattractively slouched (relaxed) fetal state. which i'm self-conscious about because it's an unattractive position for pictures even tho i am quite pretty (but they are also cropped because im just also private as hell, sorry lmao). 

bonus tho: said pet is laying ontop of me, face buried in my shoulder, twitching in her sleep as we speak!

--- but anyway. onto the actual submission:

so yeah. i saw your post! i'm here to address your call for dogs. but i dont have anymore pictures of my dog, Cash. however, i do have stuff about my cat, Allegra. 

i dont have any of them together cuz Cash lives at my family's house and Allegra lives in my apartment. and we're p sure he'd try to eat her and she'd scratch the hell out of him, so we don't try to let them meet. but, just like how Cash continued the legacy of us adopting another big slobbery dog with possessive seperation-anxiety, Allegra does fit all the criteria of those same personality traits we are such a beacon for. so i hope youll accept it as comfort nonetheless

here's a story about my cat who acts just like a anxious, cuddly, and slobbery pupper. i even bought her a pet ID tag that's shaped like a bone to honor that joke lmao) Allegra: "the honorary and tiniest mastiff" and named after the allergy medication

i got Allegra just this last year. she was a stray. now, for context: there are lots of outdoor cats in my neighborhood and they all hate strangers (they aren't feral tho, they have collars). but they all avoided my old house though because of Cash. so Allegra, newly abandoned, took advantage of that safety(?) by constantly hiding out around my family's house whenever she felt endangered

before that point tho, where i vaguely realized she existed but had no idea of what her strategy had been: i knew the cats of the neighborhood would run 15 miles away at the sound of people. but i am a small bean of cliches, so i always say "Hi kitty" anyway. even if them running away breaks my heart. and on that day, i was on my way to work for the opening shift, not early per se but i had enough time for starbucks if i wanted (and i did want) and i saw the vague mass of a cat on the lawn. predictably, i went "Hey kitty". but i also kept walking to my car due to said expectation of cats running and not wanting my heart to have that little break

and allegra did run. she just ran at me, full speed. i almost kicked this sudden HURLING THING in my peripherals like a football out of fight/flight + anxiety, except i have the aim of Charlie Brown so i thankfully missed her terribly. she was purring up a storm and crying pathetically. tho she's a Siamese, so they talk (read: complain) a lot anyway so maybe she wasn't crying. i always call her talking "crying" anyway tho cuz of the whiny pitch of it so such is a moot point. the real point was: she was ridiculously friendly

then, one morning, she was especially incorrigible. she wouldn't let me go into the car without her jumping inside too and kept scenting me, my car door, and all my equipment for this art class i was going to use for my presentation. a presentation that was a huge chunk of my grade that i couldn't be late for and Allegra was going to make late for. i had to trick her into thinking i was going to run away from my car, to which she zoomed ahead to cut me off, except i had actually done a fake-out and had really ran into the driver's seat and was already starting to slowly reverse out of the driveway. she had the sense to not go after a moving vehicle, thank god. my family texted me she cried outside our front door for hours later though. my art class that semester met once a week, so it was a 4.5 hour class that started at 7AM. and even tho that day had been a presentation day and we had less than 15 students, we still went over 3 hours. she cried during all of it. i used the "free time" to make sure i bought a cat leash and a cardboard cat carrier. but when i came back, heard no crying

i tried to get one of my neighbors to hold onto her for the afternoon. i couldnt leave her in my old house; i had family members i lived with who were terribly allergic. but i swore, so long as someone held onto her for my shift, i could take her to a shelter after. she was just so friendly and obviously new here, i just needed someone to put her somewhere safe (we lived by the freeway, by a train, by the main alternative to the freeway, and by two dog parks). but nobody really could hold onto her, so i had to hope she'd show up again when i came back from work. she didn't. i left her food out anyway.

i took her to the Humane Society Shelter closest to us because they have a microchip scanner. and she did have a chip! that was completely empty! apparently, that's a thing!! the guy there asked if i was going to keep her then, and i hadn't really thought that far. i had made the mistake of naming her and thinking she was cute, and she had done the legwork of being a cuddly motherfucker who purred constantly whenever i was around

she'd only ever appear in the early morning, when i was on my way to my shift or a midterm. about a week or two passed like this with me having no idea where she was for the rest of the day. turns out, according to said allergic family members, Allegra actually never left the house. she would hide on our roof or on our back porch's clutter or in our droopy lawn plants (like our sweetgrass) to hide from the outdoor cats or other dangers (she's a smart cat who hates the sound of cars and would hide whenever any one was particularly loud)

i'm pretty sure she's plenty well-cared for tho. in fact, i'm almost positive she's a very spoiled cat. for example, i have backups of everything x2. i have one of everything in my living area and a copy in my bedroom, should i need to close her in there when allergic family members are over (i also carry all the big allergy medication brands as a back-up in case i get a visitor who forgot to take their medication, which includes me being stocked with allegra the medication lmao) and then i also have a back-up of all her stuff in my closet should anything break. i always make sure all my windows are open when i leave for class/shifts so she can have "Cat TV" since birds do fly around the area. she has a ton of toys (she has a toy box actually) and i bought her multiple hideaways (like her shark pictured here; she also has a cactus that's pretty cute). also, ontop of having a good breakway collar, her microchip now reads my information. but yeah, im still working on the money to get her one more of everything for the house we visit for the holidays so i don't have to carry everything. i do a lot of research still-- on both cats and Siamese-- to make sure i am doing everything to make her happy, since her world is just me and our apartment now

i called out for her-- i had long since started calling her Allegra as a joke, because its a name of a popular allergy medication and so much of my family was allergic-- and shrugged sadly when she didn't come out. i had just put my stuff down to get my key out when i heard a familar crybaby. turns out, she had been sleeping in our sweetgrass and i had woken her up. she ran over and i called my family to take my things inside while i used the rest of my day to get her to a shelter. i put on a cat harness+leash before trying to out her in the cardboard box. don't buy cardboard boxes from Pet Co. they're shit. she broke out of it Alien style before i had even fully reversed out of the driveway. i had to improvise her leash into a seatbelt instead

but yeah. i say my favorite gremlin is dog-like because:

she has an overbite, so she looks like she's got her lip jutted out in a pout all the time. what's dog-like about it is this makes her slobber whenever she's excited or content (and i've grown up with mastiffs, who slobber so much you need 2 rags per room dedicated to their slobber)

hesitatingly, i called my only family member that was semi-local to see if he would be okay with fostering her until i was going to move (which was less than 6 months away) because, otherwise, i wasn't going to be able to keep her. and she was definitely going to be adopted immediately. he and his wife said of course, without hesitation. they were both huge cat lovers and they were, emotionally, my closest family members; so i had kept them in the loop about my cat quest. and they had already discussed potentially fostering Allegra, knowing my request was a possibility (read: probability). he drove over from his workplace to pick her up, with his own carrier, and drove the roughly 2 hours from our house back to his

she meows when people are at the door and greets them by begging for pets

she loves shoes. she steals my tennis shoes because she loves the laces and she will try to swat at them when im tying them. her claw getting stuck and forcing me to not continue has worked to make me late multiple times. but she also will lay down around my friends' feet and rub her face against their shoes, flipflops, and toes. one of my friends likes to joke that allegra has a foot fetish. she also can and will put her face into my tennis shoes and try to sleep like that. that's my bastard baby

i visited their house about once a week. except during finals, where i didn't visit for two or three weeks since i didnt have any exams so much as i had projects. (allegra was PISSED at me when i came back, my cuddly kitty refused to come near me and would run away when forcibly placed on my lap. she even swiped at me. by the next visit, she was grumpy but happier. by the one after that, everything was back to normal) i really liked visiting those family members too; it made us even closer. though it still annoys the male how much research i do about cat-care (as opposed to just accepting everything everyone tells me as gospel). i researched even down to "how to best pet a cat". i did this since, due to said allergic family members, i had never owned a cat and therefore didnt osmosisly process how to best care for one. i've also never been fully fauthful of people's advice that's based on "This is how we've/the media always done it". my history with mastiffs showed that not all breeds are the same and that you do have experts to utilize within your phone, and they are experts over peers for a reason. so i looked up dumbass questions like "how to best pet a cat" since i'm not an expert and Jackson Galaxy and friends are right there in my phone

she wants to play constantly. she loves tug of war the most, but anything involving chase has her going at full-speed

ive spoken to fellow cat-owners and mastiff-owners about this, and i thought this was interesting: when she isn't playing, she's sleeping. which is what mastiffs and cats do. and when i get up, she follows me. which is what our mastiffs do. and while i do stuff, she sits and waits by the doorway or else walks around my feet until i tell her to sit out of the way. which is what our mastiffs do. and then i go to sit down again, and she lays down as close as she can and goes back to sleep, which is what our mastiffs do. apparently, none of my friends cats do this; their cats just, at best, wake up to watch them leave and then their cats go back to sleep in the same place regardless of if they come back

Allegra likes to sleep at the foot of my bed for bedtime, at least for a majority of it

but, regardless if my worries, allegra seems happy! she cuddles with her claws out all the time (not sticking into my skin, just out) which is a sign of contentment. she'll also use her claws to keep me in place, like a fucking seatbelt (example pictured in post); it's where her claws will dig into the furniture and i cannot get up because of her, the possessive piece of shit. but she also gives me tons of Slow Blinks of I Love You. and she always runs to greet me at the door. and it's really funny how, anytime there's guests over, she tries to make it obvious that she's my favorite over (usually through politely tapping my leg with her paw to ask and recieve pets, and then giving everyone a very Cat Surrounded By Knives grin cuz i havent petted any of THEEEMMM lmao) she's hilarious

she doesn't like to be carried unless it means she's going with me somewhere outside the house. then she's as well-behaved as a chihuahua in a purse

she licks my hands all the time. and she licks my face to wake me up (at 4AM, Allegra, go aWAY)

she loves smelly clothes. the shoe part should tell you that much tho. for our mastiffs, we would leave them a smelly piece of clothing between washes to comfort via smell. Allegra, in a similar vein, was not impressed when i bought a laundry basket with a lid (almost carrying her to the communal laundry room once was enough, thank you!)

in the same vein as the clothes: she also loves blankets too. the more Me Smelling the blanket, the better (aka she doesn't like brand new blankets until its been like. month two or three of use). this is largely because i love blankets. but she kneads them, purring, even if im not using them. and when i am, she takes my using them as an invitation for cuddles

she sits whenever i tell her "NO" like 'who me? i was not doing a bad. i am but small creature'

she asks for a daily walk. she doesn't like the idea of being an outdoor cat. she just wants walks. like, she has lived several months not going outside and has been super happy. she made it clear on her adoption day that she was done with outside. she was perfectly content with being an indoor cat! still is, in a way! i ruined it. for myself. me. i was worried she wasn't being stimulated enough, so i experimented taking her on a walk and now i have created a monster. now she sits by the door and cries until i get out her harness and leash. which she hates her harness in a "no ball, only throw" kinda way. but she has also proven hates going outside alone since she is now ALSO scared of everything (remember those outdoor cats Allegra The Stray would hide from? how they would run away from strangers?? yeah. now that she has a Person, Allegra's turned into one of Them now). yeah.. she runs the fuck away (or as far as she can with a leash) from people she sees on her walks now. and it is pretty obvious she hates cars and dogs too, because when i have walked her outside of our new complex she is too petrified to move. like, she freezes even when just being close to a street. she likes our complex's janky carpeted hallways between the apartments, and she likes the ability to hide behind my legs. being an outdoor cat is something Allegra has decided she is not a fan of. if i try to change things up scenery-wise, she always asks to go home as soon as possible and runs into the apartment if our walks turn too much into what her life was before being adopted (aka. streets/cars, lawns, people walking). she wants walks. she LOVES and BEGS for walks. but not be outside. walks. even though she still hates her harness lmao

and that's Allegra! she's aproximately 2 years old, i've had her for less than a year, and she's assumedly a purebred Siamese cat. and she's also my ESA, or Emotional Support Animal. if applicable, a cuddly and loving pet is helpful for keeping mental health more stable. in my experience of getting one, it was fairly easy to get it permitted; especially a cat because they're super easy to get registered as compared to a dog. i am lucky enough to have regular physician as my doctor that empathizes with mental health and knows it not to be her area of expertise so much as the patient+their therapist (but also i have a history of attempted treatment on my medical record since i was 16), so my getting registered was literally just me asking for a doctor's note and her giving it to me near immediately. i can't take Allegra with me to classes or resteraunts or anything, nor do i even want to, but it forces apartments/hotels to HAVE to let me board with my ESA and to do so without an additional fee. however, i don't know if that's how ESAs work internationally or even in all of the states of America, the country where i live. but it definitely helps to have someone who needs me to get up everyday, who can never trigger me, who makes me laugh with their hijinks, and who cuddles with me regardless of if i have had a good day or bad day. Allegra is especially good at her job by being especially attentive whenever i am anxious. even if it's just me getting a little bit anxious because i'm late in turning an assignment in but have logically decided it doesn't matter because the assignment is only 2 points anyway, just turn it in late and don't focus on it; and she starts patting my leg almost continuously asking for pets inbetween rubbing herself on my legs. it's why i let her get away with never paying rent. i'm really glad she chose me. we both got really lucky with that decision ♡

i don't want to assume your situation, so i won't recommend an ESA for you so much as just remind you that they exist. i hope this all helps you feel supported and encouraged to continue to find the small wonders ♡♡♡