Willie and Waylon

We are moving to New Zealand! It’s been a lifelong dream to go, and we can’t pass it up (I’m a citizen, and Lala’s visa came through!)

The hardest part for us, after leaving our loved ones, is the animals. 

We couldn’t bring Clementine with us as she was at the end of her life, and we wouldn’t leave until she did. Then she left.

Dozy is young and strong, and will be living with her friend Sophie until we settle down and can send for her. 

But our darling brother-cats Waylon and Willie—they’re simply too old (14) to safely make the trip and the quarantine. Too many websites have scared us with stories of people’s older cats dying in transit. 

So we need to find them a good home. No, a great home, because these are great boys. 

May I tell you about them? 

We adopted them way back when Digit died. I mourned for a few months, and I was just so sad. I went to the shelter to look for a cat to adopt in his honor, and came home with two wee boys. 

The first pic of them, still in the shelter. Waylon in front, Willie in back.

Then Digit came back from the dead, and oh my god, he was pissed. 

you gotta be fuckin kidding me with this

Waylon and Willie are truly the best cats. (You know I don’t lie about this stuff. Digit was the worst cat, and I told everyone, even though he had my whole heart.) 

Typical.

They’re brothers, and from them, we learned that adopting siblings is totally the way to go. They love each other. They’re constantly cuddled around each other. (Waylon also loved cuddling Clementine, but he only seemed to grieve for a couple of days because he has Willie.) 

You know how cats are often neurotic about being petted constantly? They’re not. They love being cuddled by humans, don’t get me wrong. But they don’t need it all the time, because they have each other, I think. 

Willie is long-haired, but not sheddy. (I’m allergic to cats and I’m good with both of them as long as I don’t pet one of them and then rub my eyes.)

Willie says hello! He’d like to help!

Waylon is short-haired and sleek. 

Waylon sneaking a cuddle with Dozy who’s just not into it.

PROS AND CONS

Here are the pros of these kitties! Listing them first because they vastly outweigh the cons. 

They are soooo loving. 

Taken just a few minutes ago, when I went to find them.

Waylon loves to be held on his back like a baby. He will, in fact, stay that way for an hour if you’d like to hold him that long, especially if you squish his head. 

Upside down bliss

He is an excellent migraine kitty. He totally ignores my head unless I have one (or am getting one – he predicts them before I can.)

Migraine support cat

They love a romp! They’ll run up and down the house, chasing each other like they’re kittens.

They are both purr-buckets with quiet but very enthusiastic motors. 

They’re chatty, and always have something cheerful to say about the weather or the excellent way you’re dressed. 

They love their litter box (a very fancy Litter Robot 3 which will go with them!) and rarely miss. SELF-CLEANING LITTER BOX that actually works! It tells your phone when it’s ready to have the bag changed. No scooping at all!

Here’s Waylon hugging Lala’s leg. Yes, he looks a little shabby. Ever since he was young, he’s always had a weird thing where his fur kind of just…rubs off? Both kits are a little ratty, both of them Velveteen kitties, so well loved and so loving.

Speaking of that, they love everyone, especially all people. And all dogs. And all the other cats they’ve lived with (Digit and Adah.) For this reason, they do have to be indoor cats. They’ve never been outside, and their number one thing to do in front of a dog is to lie down and prepare to cuddle, so they shouldn’t be allowed to roam the streets or anyone else’s backyards, where they would definitely try to cuddle with strange dogs, for sure. 

They love each other most of all. Sometimes to the point of humping each other. Ahem. That’s a little weird. 

Speaking of weird, here are the cons: 

Waylon is often wailin’. He wasn’t named for that, but I believe it’s Lala’s fault for naming him that. He just likes to walk around the house and cry for fun. He always has. Willie is also vocal but less loud. They sound like Siamese.

Every six months or so, one of them (we think it’s Waylon but he’s never been caught) will pee somewhere weird, like the middle of the kitchen floor. But neither of them ever learned to spray, thank god! So it’s just pee and easily cleaned up. And strangely, not smelly? I can’t explain that but it’s nice.

Biggest con: They’re old. So they will get sick and eventually die. THAT’S A BIG CON. However, they’ve been very healthy kitties. Willie has had issues with his kidneys in the past (about 2 years ago) and has some elevated kidney levels right now, and an ultrasound coming up next week. Other than that, nothing else has gone wrong with them. Willie yaks up a hairball or two or vomits at least once a day, always on the floor. If you’ve got a dog or two, this won’t be a problem. (I’m kidding! But I honestly did always wonder why he only horked up hairballs when we were home. Then I realized, with quarantine, that the reason we always came home to clean floors wasn’t that they were waiting to do it till we got home. ) 

That’s it! 

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about Willie’s supernatural ability to tell when you’re about to eat ice cream. It’s handy, really. (What if you forgot? He cares about your needs.) He races to the kitchen to watch you open the freezer and then will sit on the back of the couch as you eat, tapping your shoulder as if to say, Good job! Have some more, friend! Sometimes he’ll slip to your lap to lick the condensation on the outside of the carton, and then he slinks away, proud of himself for getting away with it. Sucker.

We fucking love these cats. It’s breaking our hearts to leave them. 

That’s why we’re starting early to re-home them. We won’t be leaving till the end of summer, but when our house is emptying and being painted, etc, it might be better to let them go earlier rather than later. Not sure on a date to let them go just yet, though. (Oh, god, I’m crying just typing this. They’ve been with us since they were just earrings!) 

Note: We’d love their adopter to be somewhat local to NorCal. You can come get them in the car, but no airplanes, please. We’re trying to spare them that stress.

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