Penitentiary Pup

I previously worked as a probation/parole officer for 12 years, and I thought my days of going to a prison to parole someone were over but I was wrong. To celebrate 20 years of marriage, my husband and I went to the mountains. I always wanted to tour Brushy Mountain Penitentiary, so we got tickets. MoCo Mutts Rescue Center is on the prison grounds, so we decided to check out the dogs. It was such a unique concept, they are in “solitary confinement,” so basically dog jail. I immediately fell in love with a long, but very short, large-eyed dog. We pondered the idea but ultimately left without him.

Twenty minutes later we were back signing the “inmate release” forms for our Bandit. I had some reservations because we had recently lost a dog, and we have a senior indoor dog. I wondered if we had made our decision based on emotions, but it didn’t matter, it was love at first sight. Now we couldn’t imagine our lives without him. He makes us laugh and keeps us on our toes. He is by far the easiest case of parole I’ve ever had!

Jennifer Bullins-Spivey, Thomasville, a member of EnergyUnited

Full Recovery for Waylon

My husband and I got married in June and I had been asking for a puppy. My sweet husband surprised me with a puppy from the Moore County Animal Services Center. We named him Waylon and were so excited to have him! We got him on a Thursday and noticed that he didn’t have a lot of energy for a puppy. By Friday night, we were at the emergency vet. Waylon had parvo and had to be left overnight. We were not given much hope about Waylon making it through the weekend. We kept calling the vet to get updates on Waylon and were thrilled to learn that he was rapidly improving! We were able to bring Waylon home with us on Sunday afternoon.

Ever since, Waylon has been living life to the fullest! He continues to grow, loves to ride in the truck, visit the goats and loves to chew on bones! Even with all the worry Waylon gave us when we got him, we wouldn’t trade him for anything!

Victoria Seawell, Carthage, a member of Randolph EMC

Barley’s Ruse

My husband and I have had a pack of rescue dogs over the past 30 years. Each has had their own qualities: smart, sweet, bossy — they’re all different, and every one has added their pawprint on our family lore. One dog, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever mix, was one of the smart ones. Barley was adopted from a shelter as a pup by a family who was not able to keep him, and we adopted him as a leggy one-year-old from the Chessie Relief and Rescue Service.

I’ve got a lot of Barley stories, but I’ll tell this one: Barley got to an age where a nap on the rug in the sun was a fine thing. But there was a younger dog in the household, Riley, and she really wanted to play. She kept bugging him. His solution? He got up, ran to the door, and made it clear that he wanted out, because something really interesting was outside. Riley wanted out too. I shoved through bouncing dogs to open the door, Riley flew down the stairs, barking, and into the woods. Something exciting had to be out there. Barley stood on the front porch. He turned, wagged his tail, grinned his doggy grin, huffed a doggy laugh, and walked inside. Nap time.

Lucy Adams, Hillsborough, a member of Piedmont Electric

Blue Eyes, Big Personality

Newly retired, I was visiting the SPCA in search of a roommate. There was a cat still in his drop-off crate and beginning the process of introduction to shelter life. He had fleas, worms and was understandably scared.

He was two years old and didn’t look my way. He was/is soft gray, beige with a blend of off-centered markings on his face as a backdrop to the bluest of eyes. It’s as if a watercolorist had painted beautiful, contrasting, but complimentary markings, but before the paint could dry, he sneezed, and the paint smeared to the right and dripped throwing off perspective as well as any hope for symmetry. I took him home.

Shelters, rescuers and cat whisperers all talk about “adjustment periods” for the cat to adjust to their new home, but no one talks about this time as more of a period of compromise.

He chatters like a crazy squirrel, purrs like a Harley-Davidson warming up on a cold winter day and excessively meows like an attorney at trial. He sounds like a 300-pound lion hitting the floor with a thud, and zoomies sound like a runaway locomotive.

I called him fleabags, bobble-head, Punxsutawney and Harley before settling on Solomon, for peace and wisdom.

We hit a non-negotiable impasse: The 6:30 a.m. “chicken-drop.” In his arsenal of toys he has a “SmartyKat Hyper Hen Elastic Launcher Chicken-Sound Cat Toy.” Every morning, he drops this clucking chicken on my head to play fetch. I launch the chicken down the hallway, and he zooms, then slides after it like Tom Cruise in “Risky Business.”

Solomon’s contribution to the mortgage is all the laughs, feline shenanigans, unconditional love and willingness to make my casa his casa via compromise and adjustment.

Sharon Buttermore, Wake Forest, a member of Wake Electric

Gaining Jesse’s Trust

In the spring of 2023, we noticed a small, thin dog we had never seen running up and down our road. She would disappear into the woods whenever we got close. Several times, we would see her under a group of trees, watching traffic. We wondered if she had been dumped and was watching for her family. All summer we would look for her and sometimes find her watching us from across the street. We decided to name her “Jessie,” as we did not know her gender.

One day we saw her enter a woodpile near our house. We put up a trail camera to watch her. We began leaving food out for her, each time calling her name. She eventually started sleeping under our camper, so we moved her food bowl to our carport. One day, when she was under the camper, I sat near her with a piece of hot dog in my hand. I did not look at her and after a short period of time, I felt her gently take my offering. My son tried again on the next day, with the same results. My husband tried on the third day and this time, she let him pet her. By now it was September, and it had taken six months to gain her trust. We put her picture on lost/found websites to no avail. Once she let us pick her up, we took her to the vet to see if she was chipped. We were so happy that she was not chipped as we had fallen in love with her. She now lives a life of luxury in her forever home!

Jan Spencer, Walnut Cove, a member of Surry-Yadkin EMC

Famous Fat Cat

When I first moved to NC solo, I wanted a pet and decided a cat would be best due to my work schedule. My best running friend told me to adopt from the pound, but I decided that if I were meant to have a cat in my life that God would provide it. I prayed about it and let it go. A year later, to my surprise and delight, my cat Toby appeared.

That year a hurricane swooped through North Carolina, and my neighbor found a cute, little, abandoned, orange tabby kitten in his yard. His eyes were barely open, and he was the size of the palm of my hand. I bottle-fed him and trained him. Toby loved to snuggle on the couch as I pet him, and often at laundry time, he would snag a sock and take off running with it. He’d also pounce around playing in the sheets as I tried to fold them. He never met a stranger as he loved to greet everyone with a nice swirl around the legs and meow hello. His favorite of course was mealtime, and he would meow until I fed him.

I loved on him so much he got a little chubby … so fast forward a decade and he was a 20-pound fat cat. That was the impetus for my good friend Jason Hauser to author a short story book about Toby that he published in 2023. Toby was the best cat that was like a dog, too. I traveled with him to Ohio, and he was a very patient travel companion. Although Toby passed away after 18 years of great memories, he will forever live on as a reminder of the miracle of an answered prayer.  

Grace Denton, Durham, a member of Piedmont Electric

Ozzy

We moved to Raleigh from Istanbul recently. In Istanbul, cats are not just animals, they are part of the city’s soul. You see them everywhere: a gray one asleep on a metro turnstile, a ginger curled on a bakery counter, a black-and-white waiting for my daughter each morning at our gate. So, when we settled into our new house, the decision was immediate: we had to adopt a cat not buy one, but rescue one, the Istanbul way.

The shelter sent us photos of a four-month-old ash-gray kitten with huge green eyes. We fell in love and arranged a visit at his foster mom Lisa’s house. She placed us in a quiet room with the gray boy. He sat on the windowsill like a tiny prince and ignored every coo, toy, and Turkish whisper.

But behind the glass door sat another kitten, a tabby with white mittens and a perfect mackerel pattern. He pressed against the glass, purred like a motor, and when my daughter knelt down, he slid a tiny paw under the door and licked her fingers.

Driving home, no one spoke. Five minutes in, I whispered, “The one behind the door… he’s, our cat.” My daughter squealed; my husband grinned. All of us had felt it but were afraid to say so.

The next day we returned. Lisa laughed before I finished explaining. “I knew it,” she said. “The tabby only purrs for the people he chooses. He’s been waiting for you.”

We named him Ozzy.

Four months later, he fits us like he was custom-made. He lies beside the speaker when my daughter plays jazz, taps his tail to the beat, swats at the TV during Hurricanes games, and “helps” me garden by sitting in flowerpots.

We often say: had we chosen with our heads, we would’ve missed the one meant for our hearts.

Now every time we leave the house, Ozzy watches from the window as if saying, “You chose right family. I chose you first.”

Inna Goldshtein, Cary, member of Wake Electric