Recent grads, new students, some go HOME!
Latest news from Miss Sherry’s Finishing School for FelinesNot even a month after we told you about the
first 10 graduates from Miss Sherry’s Finishing School for Felines, we have more exciting news to share.
Pictured is Bunny and her friend, Miles Woodard, who helped Bunny show us all that while she loathed cats, she really thinks dogs are cool. Bunny, the dog-loving cat who was one of March ‘08 class, is now in a foster home through No More Homeless Pets Utah And per her adamant request, she is sharing her life with dogs.
In addition to Bunny, Dolly is also in foster care with
No More Homeless Pets Utah and is available for adoption through that group
Dolly graduated early out of the Class of April ’08 She saw how the 10 who graduated in March got so much attention by hanging out with people in the playroom. So Miss Dolly decided to blossom into a confident girl who begs to be brushed and adores being petted.
For those of you who know Dolly, yes, her favorite bed went with her. And yes, really, she gave up swatting. Some of Bunny and Dolly’s other classmates have been officially adopted and are just awaiting their ride home.
Homeward Bound 
Tazo: She was one of the “angry kids” when the Great Kitty Rescue was underway in Pahrump. Well, maybe being sick with an upper respiratory infection gave her time to realize how much she’d like a family.
She let go of her anger, came to relish pets and attention, and now she is adopted and going home soon..
In addition to Tazo, the other kids who graduated and now have families are
Gus who will be moving to California in May, and
Ziplock living with his mom in Utah.
Just waiting for that adoption application 
Here is this one-of-a-kind girl,
Milkmouth. She is our toy girl/lounge lizard. She’s very versatile and a ball of cuteness.
Milkmouth and Kermit are SO ready to go home! Can you hear their paws softly tapping on top of their suitcases????
Kermit worships routine and he is a sweet, sweet, slightly shy boy (We are hearing really nice rumors on Kermy’s behalf. Stay tuned!) See this dear boy with the distinctive ears and visualize him home.
It is so much fun when those eyes soften, the ears go up, the whiskers are forward, the body is relaxed and ... here is one more cat who gets it, who understands the bad times are really over and people can be kind, can be in love with a kitty in fact. Imagine that!
Teacher’s Pets Before we give you a progress report on the rest of the class and new students….you remember those super-smart kids who jumped ahead of the rest of us in class? And then our parents asked us why we couldn’t be like Suzy Cream Cheese or Johnny Dapper? Well same here.
Treat (pictured above) and Chelsea were brought in to go to school, assessed the whole classroom setting and said, “We prefer sitting on someone’s lap and lounging in the playroom, thank you very much.”
So they got full-time gigs as role models for the other kitties. Treat and Chelsea will gladly give up their role model status for a place on the couch, watching TV with you…so
adoption applications are welcomed.
And this darling is our accelerated student
Chelsea
OK, onward with progress reports for those still in school. Get out your stars and smiley faces.
Kendra is another fast learner. One day in the classroom and she was ready for the playroom and we expect to be playing pomp and circumstance for her soon.
Isis is a real trip. She actively solicits pets and is so eager that if you move your hand away, she practically falls out of her bedroom cage in pursuit of the pet. Just don’t try to pick her up and take her out yet!
Audrey was a tough gal. She was the real deal; she was our Laila Ali (Muhammed Ali’s daughter who is a professional boxer). Only, the thing Audrey really defeated in the ring was her fear.
On her very first venture into the little transition playroom Audrey showed everyone that she now loved to be petted and would not run from anyone.
In two hours she graduated from the classroom to the roomy playroom. She did so very well that she got to go on a sleepover that very same night…and came back with rave reviews from her slumber party buddies in the morning.
“She just made up her mind and jumped in with all four paws,” said headmistress Terri Gonzales. “She’ll be graduating soon.”
Sylvester was a strikey, bitey, ears-pasted-to-the-head cat. “Was” being the operative word. Now he is sitting in people’s laps with his ears forward, whiskers forward and no longer striking out.
He’s still nervous, so not ready for playroom time just yet. But he has to step up, he tells us, since his sister Delphi joined the class.
“We’ve been speculating for the longest time that Sylvester and Delphi looked so much alike in their markings, their head shape, their behavior that they may be related,” Terri said. “Then when we were picking new students to come in after the first class graduated, Delphi was one of the ones picked.
“We brought
Delphi into the classroom and Sylvester sat up in his bedroom cage and proclaimed ‘That’s my sister.’
"The staff was amazed at how intent he was on her, so they brought her bedroom cage over next to his. Sitting side by side, you can see the family resemblance in these two tuxedos. And just to make sure we don’t forget they are family, Sylvester reaches his paws through the cage to touch her, and he will lay with his paws resting on his Delphi’s back. It’s really touching.”
Delphi is still a scaredy girl but she is accepting pets and he staff and volunteers have noticed that she is much more settled, now that she is next to Sylvester and doesn’t seem quite as afraid.
Lexy is still working on not running when people approach her in the playroom. But even though she’s not absolutely relaxed, she did get to go on a sleepover and her hosts, Corinne and Bob reported that she’s a talker. “She chirped all night long, she hopped up on the bed three times with us and she never tried to hide.” Way to go, pretty girl.
Bambino is slowly letting us see that he really is a cowardly grey lion. More and more, a worried, soft look creeps over his face. Less and less does he try to scare the beejebers out of us. When it’s his time to practice being brushed he snuggles down, rests his head on his paws and gives out a contented sigh. He’ll even allow pets on his back...sometimes.
Now don’t take that to mean he’s ready to be held on a lap or anything. But it’s such a far cry from that warrior who flew across the cage and offered to tear us up. What a great day it will be when he gets over his fear.
Bubbles can still be an edgy girl sometimes, but truth is she’s turning into a lap baby.
“She still gets that paw up into the air…only now it’s not to strike you, it so she can stretch out and get attention,” Terri said.
Sultan is a very special boy, not only because he is so bleeding gorgeous but because he has very limited vision, so learning to trust the hand that he can’t even see very well is a big step for him. He is at the point that he eats baby food from people’s finger and he loves being brushed. He does allow light touching, but he’s still pondering the implications of allowing people to caress him at will.
Aurora the Meow Mensa is a new student. Yes, Mensa, that club for geniuses). This beauty is a challenge. (Aurora was one of the 114 cats seized from a hoarder’s house and has been at Best Friends since the end of August. But she managed to give her caregivers the slip and was always too smart for every effort they had to cajole her into one of the playrooms in the Pussycat Lounge.
They’d no sooner get her back in the playroom and she’d case the joint and find the one way out so she could roam the yurt at will. Aurora was never in any danger of getting outside and just seemed to delight in showing us lesser mortals how much smarter she was than us. Justin the vet tech loves to tell the story of how she realized he had lunchmeat to offer and she decide to play lovey dovey just long enough to snag the meat and run away. So now she’s in the classroom and has already gone from slamming the brush out of people hands to accepting brushing…sort of.
Hugo is such a character. He will sneak his paw into his Aurora’s bedroom, snag a snack and pull it into his room. He loves treats but he is still confused about whether he should be afraid of people or like them. He solicits pets and then will lunge and smack the hand that he liked a minute ago….just a little conflicted, aren’t you handsome?
Jinx finally believes people when they tell him that big dimple in the middle of his face (his nose had to be removed because of skin cancer) is adorable. He is at the point where his next step is to trust people to pick him up and bring him out of his bedroom for some lap time….but he is just not ready for that. Still, he does like being petted in the safety of his room.
Dazzler loves to be petted but when it’s her turn to go into the little transition playroom, she still feels the need to climb up the wall. She does love to be petted though.
Juniper is running hot and cold on whether she likes people. Some days she acts like this is nice — being brushed — and other days she reverts to swatting and hissing.
Kramer loves to be petted. He’ll get this really worried look and has to dig in to not run out of old habits.
Polo has worked very, very hard on not scooting away when a human approaches. He still has to stay in the transition playroom but we discovered he is a Ladies Man. He had a couple of girl kitties hanging out with him in the playroom and once he had women to impress, he stopped running form people.
Persephone is another one of those “I loved to be petted if you can catch me” cats. So many of these cats were used to running and running hard when they were at the FLOCK facility, that even when they have totally capitulated to love, sudden movements can get them panicked. In Persephone’s case you have to peel her off the ceiling of the run, sit down on the ground with her, and let her calm down, breathe and relax into the petting. She’s so beautiful we figure she’s just a high-strung artist.
Dice had sick days due to a really nasty abscess and so she has to take some of her classes over now that she is well. She is working on coming out of her bedroom cage without hanging onto the bars. Once she is in the lap, she does rock-a-bye baby very nicely.
Zappa also had a doctor’s excuse from school because of a bad toothache, which was not helping his ability to concentrate on his studies or be nice to his teachers, and Zappa was doing so well before his teeth went south. We got the ouchey-boo-boos out of his mouth.
He’s just now ready to go back to school and says he is REALLY looking forward to when he gets to go out for recess in the playroom.
Joker is a brat. He always makes a mess in his bedroom, tossing things across the room, shoveling litter out of the pan. Joker hasn’t quite figured out that he can get attention for being nice and still is covering his fear with hisses and spits. But he is coming out of his bedroom for lap sessions.
Ginseng was a truant and furious when she first started school. How dare people look at her? She’d try to hide in her litter box. Now she hisses at people when they walk by her, and then rewards them with blinks if they stop and look at her.
Paprika is going to very interesting to watch as she progresses. During the Great Kitty Rescue she was fed by people wearing welding gloves and pushing her food in her direction with a metal grabber. She would charge at anyone and everyone, taking on all comers.
Now she has decided baby food served from a gloved hand is really a nice thing indeed and she like pets on the forehead. And, GASP! When someone walks by she leans over and stretches out her paw to touch them.
When Paprika graduates, there will be confetti tossed in the air…she might like that to play with as it falls back to earth.
Charisma is very shy and unsure of herself. But she has figured out that treats are good.
Suri is discovering pets on the head and her looks are softening.
Volunteers Cherished Please contact our volunteer coordinator, Kalene Craddock at 435-644-2001, ext. 4119 or email
volunteers@bestfriends.org and help these special kitties get ready to go home.
Adopt a miracle cat . To adopt one of these cats, please email our Cat Adoption team at
catadoption@bestfriends.orgPhotos by Gary Kalpakoff, Mark Morgan and Sarah Ause