Here Kitty, Kitty!

We've been thinking about adding a new family member. I've been keeping my eye on the shelter listings and have found a few potential candidates. We've been wanting a Siamese, but apparently they are in high demand. Each time I've gone to look at them (within a day of them being listed), they are already gone. It's been crazy. A couple weeks ago I came across this listing.

Pretty hideous eh? Doesn't even look like a Siamese, so I ignored him. After all the other cats had been scoped up so fast, I decided I might as well go and take a look at him in person. I called the shelter and found out this picture was taken at 2 months and he is now 7 months old. He was in a foster home but was now available at the shelter.

I was pleasantly surprised when I met him. He was a handsome little fellow. The only thing was, he still didn't really look like a Siamese. He had the point marks, but that was about it. And even then, he had pure white feet with the marks starting above his huge paws. Ultimately, he won me over with his good looks and sweet disposition. I decided to go for it.

Being a foster cat, I was not allowed to visit with him, let alone adopt him, unless the foster mom approved my application first. The person in front of me was handing in an application for a different foster pet and the receptionist informed her that it would be about a week and they would get back to her. Great, I thought as I handed in my application. But then she informed me that the foster mom was at the shelter and she could look at my application right there and then. And I was approved! I told them that I was surprised that he was still around and they informed me that there have been many, many applications, but none had been approved. I guess our home was a good match.

The pictures do not do him justice. I'm not able to fully capture his unique cream coloring and markings with my camera. You can see in the first picture, his right eye has brown scar tissue on it from his eye infections when he was first found. While he's eye sight is fine, the scar is permanent.


We'd been batting around some names (Wonton, Moo Shu, Yeti) but none seemed to really fit. Meanwhile, I was really curious to figure out what he's mixed with since he's characteristics are so unusually. That's when I discovered that he most closely resembles a Tabby-Point Birman (obviously he's a mix), who's main distinquishing feature is the pure white feet.

Then I found out that Birman breed has an interesting naming convention. Each year is assigned a letter of the alphabet and then the cat receives a name that starts with the same letter. While some countries skip letters, the US runs through all the letters. 2009, the year he was born is the year of the "G". And then the right name clicked into place.

So everyone, please say hello to Genghis.