Little Shadow was a rescue I got her when she was a year old in 2000, she had been found abandoned in an apartment after the tenants moved out. I had decided to get a cat and went to an adoption event at Petco. I told them I wanted a small, friendly indoor cat that was black or tuxedo and they told me to come back the next week as they had the perfect cat for me. The next week they had her for me, they took her out of her crate and put her in my lap and she just curled up contentedly. Petco customers walked by, some with their dogs, but they did not faze her and I could tell she felt safe with me.
Little Shadow got her name because she was a small black cat who loved to follow me around the house. She was affectionate and loved to lay either in my lap or on my arm. She would also sometimes sleep on her side with all four paws up against me. If I let her sit on my shoulder she would just stay up there purring as I walked around the house with her. She loved helping fold laundry (and laying on nice warm folded clothes) in her younger days she used to fetch and retrieve toys.
As the years went by she was a bit less active and playful but always just the sweetest girl. She was my companion for many happy years. I moved several times but always kept her.
I could have never asked for a better cat and I feel blessed that she was with me for as long as she was. I made the painful decision to put her to sleep last Monday, because she was having such trouble getting around. She had been losing weight and I hat seen her fall trying to jump on counters, and I knew it was getting to be near time, but I had not wanted to face it. That morning reality slapped me in the face. I looked at my poor skinny arthritic girl, told myself I was not going to let her suffer anymore and made the vet appointment for that afternoon. She was a good girl up to the very end and I held her head while she was given humane euthanasia and saw for myself that she left peacefully. I am in so much pain from losing her, but I would rather have to bear my own pain than for her to have to continue hurting. I will get another cat someday perhaps, but there will never be another quite like Little Shadow.