Dolly takes in the snow after moving to Maine. (Emily Bracher photo)
I quite often find myself thinking, “I wish I could text my cat.”
This is usually when I am away from her, whether that is a weeklong trip, a full day at work, or an hour spent at the grocery store. This is because, in the most cat lady way possible, she is who I spend the most time with and wish to refer to for advice.
I adopted Dolly in September 2023 after wanting to get a cat for a while. I had just started my sophomore year at Louisiana State University, which meant I was out of the dorms and in my own space where I was able to have a pet. My childhood cat Patches, a very ferocious outdoor calico, had passed away while I was in high school and I missed having a feline friend.
Going into the shelter, I only knew two things for sure: I wanted a girl cat and I wanted to name her Dolly, after Dolly Parton. I searched and searched the room for a cat that I connected with, but with not much luck. I decided to still ask a volunteer if I could look more at one named Pepsi.
As I was heading out of the cat section of the shelter, a volunteer was walking in with two kittens in her arms. The moment I saw the tiny calico that she dropped off, I knew that I would be taking her home. She was only two months old and could fit in my palm. After a little bit of paperwork and a trip to the pet store, I was officially a cat owner.
Dolly sits in her favorite spot in Key West. She was pretty upset the next time she returned to the room and the box wasnt there. (Emily Bracher photo)
In complete honesty, the first couple of months were hard. She was a rambunctious little thing who would wake me up at all hours of the night and do stupid things like jump off her crate and need to go to the vet for a $300 X-ray (she was fine). I felt like a mom to a very hyper child. But, as she settled in, she became my closest companion.
During this time, she discovered her favorite place to sleep was not in her bed, or her crate, or at the foot of my bed. No, it was on top of my neck where she could stay nice and warm. From the start, she had so much personality from having a vendetta against my best friend Morgan to wanting to hang out with my roommate’s 16-pound cat, despite being just 6 pounds herself at the time.
Throughout the school year, she would be the one by my side through finals, when I had a cold, or when I was down in the dumps. When I would make the 17-hour drive home, she would be my co-pilot in the back seat, meowing every time the car slightly slowed down.
The first time I had the notion of wanting to text my cat was halfway through the summer after my sophomore year. I had just dropped her off with my parents to stay with them for two weeks while I studied abroad in Austria. I had a week between dropping her off and leaving, and as I was packing up my apartment, I kept finding myself looking to call for her to jump on to the bed or play. It was the first time I had been away from her for a long period of time and I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself.
Since then and over the past almost three years that I have had her, any time I am away I wonder what she is up to. In my last apartment in Baton Rouge, I knew I could count on seeing her in the window waiting to watch my truck drive by. Every time I had to leave her at the vet while I flew home for shorter breaks, I thought about what she was up to. Luckily enough, my version of texting her was by texting the vet tech I was friends with for daily checkups. Dolly eventually gave up her beef with Morgan, who she would have special sleepovers with when I was away for long weekends.
Dolly on her adoption day. She was too tiny for her ears. (Emily Bracher photo)
Since moving to Maine, my Louisiana cat has become a changed animal. In my college apartment, she mostly hung out in my room out of respect for my roommates. Now, she has an entire two-story house to herself, complete with large windows. She went from watching livestreams of birdfeeders to the real thing outside. Every day I come home, she greets me in the window. On the days that I am away for longer, she makes sure to act extra annoyed.
I am aware of the image I am creating when I say my cat is one of my closest friends, but she is. I look forward to watching TV on the couch with her or playing fetch with her favorite fish toy (she might secretly be a dog). Even though she is much older and heavier now, her favorite place to sleep is still on my neck.
I think adopting a cat as a college student was one of the best decisions I ever made. It gave me a sense of responsibility during a very formative time and gave me the most talkative, sassy little cat in the whole wide world.
Even if you are not looking for a pet at the moment, supporting local shelters in any way possible is so important. The shelter Dolly came from was extremely overpopulated and was a kill shelter. By donating, adopting, or even fostering, you can help make these animals’ lives a little better, and believe it or not, they might help you.
(“Paper Pets” spotlights the animal companions of Lincoln County News employees.)
