PALINE

Start of the tale: September 2000. We have come to the Open Doors day organized by the SPA animal shelter from Lausanne. While visiting the places of interest, we have noticed a small blue cat, recently sterilized, about which we couldn't find out anything any more from that day on.

Intrigued by the potential breed of this cat who we only had seen shortly and from too far, we have returned to the refuge centre the next Monday to get some more information... so we could have a personal meeting with "Papouille", abandonned at the age of only 1 year and a half, all because she was supposedly "too active".

On entering the room where we were waiting for her, she stopped for a little while at the door. She examined us attentively. And suddenly she began to purr resembling to a plane's engine and to fawn upon us. The instant match!

So, after 5 small minutes of thoughts, it was obvious, we could do nothing else than take this blue housecat home.

She travelled in a paperbox which she cut to pieces, from the SPA center to our place. As soon as we arrived, we showered the poor filthy animal. Pléiade and Zeph didn't welcome her, to the opposite! We had never thought during that day to come home with our third cat! And we had never decided in such a short period of time to adopt a feline...

Just a week after her arrival we left for 3 weeks of holidays to travel from Monaco to Bordeaux, from hotel to hotel, with our 3 cats! Paline could do nothing else than stick to her new life, as she was beautiful and seemingly feeling very well in her "crazy" home where the members take their cats on holidays, whatever the conditions are! :-) After a few months, she came with us again to Bretagne... from that time, she knew perfectly well her place in our car, between the two front chairs, in front of the ventilator! On our side, we know that she doesn't bear any kind of steep turns!

During the first year, even the first two years, Paline was very restless, to such an extent that I even considered commiting her to another family, with her house, so that our Paline could get out and feel better. Then she gradually started to calm down... although we cannot say that she is always quiet. Every evening she makes attempts to open the front door (in the end, she knows very well how to open the doors by jumping on the door-handle), and these attempts can last hours! She can also make her needs outside the pot when she is contradicted (sometimes she is very glomy!) But nevertheless our Paline is so lovely that we forgive her everything, and we surround her with a lot of affection in order to make her feel better!