Chloe AKA Baby

Baby celebrated the first anniversary of her adoption this week. Her adopters shared the following update with us:

In early July of 2025, Rick and I once again found ourselves looking for a new kitty.

Sadly, we had just put our dear Kia kitty down in early May. We had found her at WAIF in 2017, where she was known as Pretty Girl at that time. Our beautiful Kia kitty lived with us for eight years, but her health deteriorated—at first slowly, then rapidly—from leukemia. It was a heart-wrenching time for us all, and we knew the merciful, loving thing to do for Kia near her end was to help her go.

In June, Rick began searching online for new kitty candidates, per his criteria: female, short hair, multi-color, between 2 and 4 years old. Also important was a fairly bold, resilient personality (we take our cats trailer camping with us). After some research time, Rick found and we visited a few available cats in the Sequim and Quilcene area, but none seemed to be a good fit for us.

So back to WAIF we headed in early July, with 3 or 4 cats we had in mind to look at. The first cat we saw was Baby—a cute, petite cow cat, obviously full of energy, and very willing to come out of her cage to greet us! We checked out a few other cats as well, but, in the end, it was Baby that we decided to bring home with us. Neither Rick nor I will ever forget, as we were about to take Baby out the front door of WAIF, someone down the hall (obviously an employee) said, “They took BABY!”

So this has now been a full year of learning about each other, a year of 98% hilarity, joy and love; and 2% aggravation and frustration. Not bad!

We quickly changed Baby’s name to Chloe, which didn’t take long to develop into Chlo-Zilla sometimes! What energy she has, is smart, always has an opinion, and is an intense observer. Early on, we found her to be easily overstimulated and saw her frightening looks. It took a while to determine whether the frightening looks were just serious play looks, or “I’m going to remove your arm now” looks. We’ve been patiently teaching each other boundaries, building trust, and gut-laughing every day. We can’t imagine life without our Chloe girl!

Some of the funny things Chloe loves are:

• Assisting bedmaking in the morning (she pounces on our feet sometimes from underneath the bedspread)
• Acting as the official alarm clock in the morning, with purrs, pats, licks and love bites (breakfast can never come too early, you know)
• To be invited to other rooms of the house as we move about
• Assisting us in the toilet room and the shower room (apparently we need all the help we can get)
• Using the hallway from one end of the house to the other for a raceway (how can a 9-pound cat sound like an entire herd of elephants, complete with skidding sounds around corners?)
• Laying and listening to our daily half-hour music sessions (ukulele, voice—sometimes including Chloe’s)
• Playing with her favorite toys Bank and Bandit, and chasing her laser mouse and other ‘feathered’ items
• Cackling at the birds and growling at the dogs and elk at the parks
• Lying by the fireplace in the cooler months and baking her belly

The three of us just recently returned from an extended camping time this June, and Chloe did well. Though the actual road part is a challenge for her, she is getting better at it (she used to sing a full opera, then just an operetta, and this last month only an aria or two). She likes the trailer, and LOVES home. We’re impressed that she doesn’t hold the travel against us, doesn’t run away when we’re getting ready to go, and still likes us after we get back home. I guess the three of us are figuring things out, and we make a pretty good team. We look forward to many more great years together!

Paulette and Rick H.