19 years ago, this precious cat was born at the animal shelter in Delano, Minnesota. When he was 8 weeks old, my girlfriend and I adopted him. The mother was taken in as a stray and gave birth to 4 tiger kittens.
All of them were tiger-striped and cute as only kittens can be. Only one of them came to the front of the cage, mewed at us, and stuck his paws through the bars. The other 3 just looked at us from the back of the cage. We said “We’ll take that one: the curious, talkative one with the white feet.”
His folder label read “ARLO – WHITE FEET.” We thought Arlo was a stupid name for a cat, so he has been known as ‘Peanut’ ever since. As you can see, he has been well taken care of, well-fed, and well-loved. Today, he celebrates his 19th birthday. That’s 92 in “people years.”
Happy Birthday, Peanut!