Spotlight: Permanent Cat 2/6 - DUSTY!

His full name is "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes.  He is 5 years old and weighs about 15 pounds.  We think he is a Ragamuffin mix.

About a month after I moved to NY (5 years ago), I saw a 4-month-old kitten in the stairwell of our apartment building.  At that time, he was just a friendly little kitten who was meowing at me and let me pick him up and hold him.  I asked our roommate if we could take him in, and he said no, that we had agreed to no cats.  A few days later, while my husband and I were coming home from work, he was in the stairwell again, but this time soaked and filthy from the rain outside and shivering.  This was the first time my husband saw him.  He scooped him up and took him into the apartment, and he didn't care what our roommate would say.  The kitten needed us.  We gave him a bath and tried to feed him, but every time I set him down, he would jump back up on me and just cuddle; I never had a cat before, nor since, that cared more about being near me than exploring a new place.  I will never forget that night.

Dusty is a gorgeous cat.  While we will never know exactly what breed he is, based on his characteristics, we strongly believe he is at least part Ragamuffin.  He has many of the breed traits, too much in common to ignore it - fatty pad on abdomen (different from a chubby cat), medium-length hair that doesn't mat, large expressive eyes, and goes limp when held.

Dusty used to be our ambassador cat when we brought in new cats, but after the last 2 years of it just being him, Pumba, and Dusty, he's grown to dislike new cats when first introduced, but it seems more because of jealousy than aggression.  He got too used to having a lot of our attention.

Even though Dusty isn't the first cat to make friends with new cats anymore, given time he gets along with anyone.  However, he is deeply, deeply bonded to Bobby, who will be our next spotlight post.  If anything ever happened to us, these two would HAVE to stay together.  We call them DustBob.

He is our ultimate lap cat.  As I mentioned in Pumba's post, our visitors are either Team Pumba or Team Dusty.  Dusty has absolutely no problem jumping into a new person's lap, whether they want him there or not.  He's incredibly friendly and travels well.  We even took him to a Christmas photo event at the shelter we volunteer at; we were the ONLY people to bring a cat, everyone else brought their dogs.  He was a hit because of it.

While Pumba is -my- boy, Dusty is Daddy's boy.  Even though Dusty does love us equally (which we've proven several times by seeing if he would leave one's arms for the other!), my husband is head-over-heels for that kid.  We love all our animals, but Pumba was my first cat, and Dusty was his first cat.  Nothing can change that.