My poor, anthropomorphized pet. I sometimes forget that she's at a disadvantage...we're not cats, and we'll never understand her all the way.

We've been a tight unit, the three of us. I would live in a cat colony if I could, so I've always been on board with rescuing another cat...Nick? Not so much—mainly because we didn't want to rock the boat with Sophie.

She's a dog in a cat's body, truly. She's the sweetest and most engaging cat I've ever known. We didn't want her to go all territorial and lose her awesomeness. She is also on a prescription diet from a kidney illness she was diagnosed with early-on in her life as a domesticated cat. The prescription diet will help her keep it in check, but the vet also warned that stress could trigger a relapse.

Then, our condo sold super fast and we couldn't find a house that we loved in Conservancy Place, a community along conservancy land in my hometown...but we did find a lot, so we decided to build. In that time, Sophie was transplanted from her home two different times, subjected to a multicat household, and...she adapted...very well, actually.

Not long after we moved into the new house, it was time for Nick's mom to take her annual leave of winter and head to Florida. We watched her cat, Krystal, while she was away. I was sad to see her go because the cats were in such harmony. Sophie acted differently after Krystal was gone. She became very clingy (almost suffocatingly so). She's never been a cat to suffer from separation anxiety in the past, but after a year living with multiple cats followed shortly by a 2-month play-date with another cat, I think being an only cat started to suck.



A lot of buildup for that one statement, eh? We've had Sophie eight years (she is eight-and-a-half years old) as of last month, so this has been a years' long thought process.

What are we getting ourselves into?