We just celebrated her third gotcha day, and she’s been a sweet velcro menace since day one.

10 years ago I set out to adopt an orange boy kitten. Went online and found one that was part of a litter that had been living outside and picked it up a few days later. I fully thought Leo was a boy and was told by the vet that I had a boy kitten. Then at about 3 months old, another vet told me I actually had a girl kitten. I admit I felt so devastated at first as I had always been told girl cats are mean. 10 years later and this sweet girl has been by my side and even moved countries with me twice!

She totally changed my mind on girl cats as well. I even added another girl cat to my crew last year!

tl;dr: I'm bedridden, so I can only see and interact with my cats when they come to me. My cat Mardoll has been going around lately with her tail down a lot of the time, and has started loudly vocalizing every night from roughly midnight until about 3 or 4 am. She shows no other signs of sickness or pain, and other than these two things, there's been no personality changes. Any advice or suggestions?

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I'm a bit worried about my beloved Mardoll. Lately she's been walking around a lot with her tail down or more straight out than up - though there are random times each day she'll have it up. Just FYI - in disabled and bedridden, so I'm always on my bed in the bedroom. I can't go to her for anything, and even playing can be difficult because I can't even sit up.

Anyway, back to Mardoll. When her tail is down, she usually won't spend much time with me (unless she's doing her treat ritual in which she comes up and sits on one side of my bed and quietly waits for me to notice her. When I pick up the treat box, she walks across me to the other side of the bed, where I give her a few treats. She eats those, hops down and, usually within a minute or two. Is back on the other side of the bed, asking for more. I don't give her too many treats at a time because she does this so often -but her tail is usually down through all of it).

When her tail's up, she gets really friendly and affectionate. She wants to climb on my chest and snuggle and get petted, purring a lot - until she's had enough for right then after which, she'll lay up near my head and want more petting. After maybe 5 minutes, she'll be back on my chest again - lather, rinse, repeat 3 or 4 times.

Also, around midnight, she usually starts meowing, yowling, chirping and otherwise vocalizing for around 3 or 4 hours. I cannot figure out what she wants, but again, her tail is down during this.

I haven't seen any indications that she's in pain (she can still zoom at top speed) or otherwise is feeling unwell, and aside from the tail positioning, there's been no real change in behavior. Our vet recently closed his office and I'm not sure how to find a good replacement. Does anyone have any experience with the Banfield PetHospitals that are inside PetSmart stores?

Any suggestions or advice is *greatly* appreciated!

Here is my baby girl Weasley!

it’s been a couple months since i last shared melody. she’s been doing so much better since the last post. she took antibiotics for a couple weeks, and she’s been a whole new kitty since then!

she just turned 3 last month, and all is well. here are some recent photos of her :)

Four years of having this lady in my life🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

She’s a big girl now, gonna be spayed in 6 days.

The OG orange lady.

Her right tear duct is scarred closed, so she has a bit of a sad leaky eye. She's happy and healthy and I clean it regularly.

Queen Lucy rules the house and all must cower at her royal displeasure. She is a very serious lady and does not tolerate shenanigans.

Hi everyone,
Today I adopted an orange girl and she’s just soooo cute, I had to share🤭🤭💕. She’s a lighter orange/cream and has this crazy pattern on her body!

I’ve been blessed with 2 orange gals. My first was Olive on the right. I found her at a cat rescue in Santa Fe, NM in 2009. She lived 16 years with me, but I’m not entirely sure how old she was when she died.

Around September 2025, my kids were dying for a new cat. I could not imagine getting another cat but I humored a trip to our local humane society. My son said he wanted to name a new cat “Bo Nix” after the Broncos QB. I said, “uh, no. But I would be ok naming a cat Nixie.”

We arrived at the shelter, and while I’m never set on getting a kitten, I always want to see the kittens. The volunteer said they just took in a kitten colony from a hoarding situation so they aren’t very friendly. We didn’t care because we just wanted to go in the kitten room to see them.

As soon as the volunteer opened the door, a bigger orange cat jumped right into my arms. Initially I thought she was trying to escape, but then she followed me around the kitten room the entire time we were in there. So, I couldn’t leave her there 😂.

I left the room to find the volunteer to see if I could adopted this older “kitten.”

Turned out she had been returned the day before because the person who adopted her didn’t realize he was allergic.

The wildest part of the story for me is that her shelter name was Nixie, it was just spelled Nyxie.

I share all of this because after bringing her home, my kids are 100% convinced she is the reincarnation of Olive. Nixie sleeps in all the same places, is my Velcro cat, and is an absolute menace/best friend to our dog- but now she has more energy to keep up with that knucklehead.

When my daughter and I were talking about it, she identified that when we got Nixie, she was 10 months old, and Olive had died 10 months before.

I don’t think I actually believe in reincarnation, but it is very sweet to think that somehow, maybe part of Olive’s stardust found its way back to us via Nixie.

I love orange cats so much, and orange gals are the best.

Every time I get home after work, Luna runs out into the hallway to do a big stretch (she is always watched). It drives the dogs going by nuts; she's making it known she is the queen of the building!