We all like to think that when we bring a pet into our homes it’s of our own choosing. However, this is often not the case especially when it comes to cats.

You’ve finally decided to adopt a kitten, or at least go look. Now visualize that trip to the shelter, the banks of cages each holding a single cat within. Every feline has a different coat color and pattern, body type, age and personality. “However will I choose just one?” you think as you wander past, peering through the wire doors.

Some of the animals are snoozing, oblivious to the people looking for the “one.” These are the relaxed, bored cats that have adjusted to life within their small boxes, or perhaps they’ve just given up. You continue on by, bored yourself.

There are those that crouch with their backs to the public, heads stuffed in a corner trying to disappear. They are the shy, scared ones that often take the rap for not “showing” well. Many of these are eventually put down as being unadoptable; so sad as many are perfectly loveable. But again you walk on because they didn’t even give you a glance.

A few are using the litterbox or eating, making no eye contact or otherwise trying to engage any of the folks peering into their small quarters. There is little interest on either side of the wire. Your search continues.

Suddenly you feel a tap on your shoulder. The long-haired female black adult cat you just walked by is reaching a paw through the bars to snag your sleeve. You turn back for a second look. A quick “prrrrt” trill, a purr and head-butt to the cage in your direction encourages you to consider taking the kitty into the Get Acquainted Room for some one-on-one time. You do this even though the cat is nothing at all what you’d envisioned…anything but black and definitely no long hair.

Being the object of desire is an instant attention getter for humans. It makes us feel special to be chosen, and it doesn’t matter if it is another person or an animal doing the choosing.

The magic doesn’t even have to happen instantly in a shelter setting, as many of us have found out when a stray cat sets up camp on our doorstep. It is hard to turn them away when they obviously have picked you to be their caretaker. Perhaps it’s just for the food handouts, but we like to tell ourselves it’s because they like US that they stick around day after day. It’s this subtle long term presence that wears a person down until you finally give in and accept the fact that you now have an outdoor cat as well as an indoor one.

Such is the case at my house, with Gutter Kitty (she always drinks out of the gutter, despite having access to cleaner water). She is now scaling the fence and hanging around my back door. Although she’s an unpredictable animal, having scratched me even as I set a bowl of food in front of her, I cannot turn a blind eye or ear to her basic needs of food and flea meds. I’m just hoping she’ll pay me back by hunting those pesky gophers in my backyard.

It’s mating season out there. Kittens are already appearing and the hungry gopher babies are not far behind. Why not visit the shelters and let an older cat or two choose you now, an experienced one for a backyard hunter, the other for your lap inside. But you don’t have to wait for them to do the picking, take some time to try and engage the shyer cats in the cages. Often left behind, they need homes just as desperately as the friendlier kitties do. You might even be saving their lives.