Here's Jack.....

Isn't he wonderful? Jack the Cat. I found him on-line via the Idaho Humane Society's website. He was in foster care, as there were so many cats at the shelter.

It was so easy! The people who had Jack (not his name at the time), were responsible for maintaining the posting and everything went through them until I went to their house to meet my guy.

Then, all us drove to the shelter. The people relinquished Jack and I adopted him. At the time, it was really disappointing because they had to keep Jack overnight for dental work. It ended being two days before I was able to bring him home.

This picture is from the posting on the shelter website. It's one of the few I have of him awake. Jack is an "older kitty", estimated (by his teeth) to be over 8 years old. He is a "gold" or "orange" or "red" cat, depending on the vocabulary one chooses.

I have been without a cat since the Fall of 2006. It was ok at first because there were dog and then dogs at Dan Wilkins house in Phoenix, but once I went to Korea, it was so hard!

Koreans generally leave their dogs outside. There were tons of dogs in my neighborhood and near the school where I taught. I posted lots of pictures of dogs under "Older posts" on this blog. Most outside dogs were big, but I also saw little dogs in the arms of people downtown. I seldom saw a cat, but at E-Mart and Jeonju Mart, there was lots of cat and dog food, but man, it looked cheap! Kitty litter was VERY expensive. Anyway, no dogs or cats for me in Korea. So, you can imagine how I felt when I got to Boise, America and could get a cat again!

I had no idea when I got to Korea that some Koreans eat dog meat. There was a dog "farm" across the highway from my dorm at Woosuk University. I walked past the farm going to and from teaching class. It wasn't fun. Even less fun was seeing trucks loaded with kennels full of dogs headed for a not-so-great-place to be "taken care of."

I tried really hard not to think about dogs being killed and eaten. I just kept thinking that other cultures are appalled by certain "customs" in the States. I can still hardly think about it.