Man with Cat Jumping 1987

I am the proverbial, "I'm a dog person" person, which usually means simultaneously, "I don't really like cats".  That being said, we were the owners of Sneakers for 17 years.  We had owned her mother, Sonja Gechtoff,  who my husband, Bob had saved from the Emergency Animal Clinic where he worked as a vet tech.  She had come in with a broken leg and since no one wanted to pay to have it fixed, he set the leg and brought her home.She settled in fine, then managed to get pregnant and have kittens with a full leg cast on.  Just after she weaned her babies, she was shot in the field adjacent to our house and died not long after. We kept one kitten, and that was Sneakers.

There was something that Sneakers did that always unsettled me.  You would be holding her in your arms, petting her, most probably chatting with her about something of interest to both of you.  She would seem completely content--purring even. Then, suddenly, for no apparent reason, she would spring out of your arms, pushing off with her claws and scratching you as she bailed, causing you to start with fear. There was a kind of pushing away, a "get me the hell out of here!", feeling to her abrupt departure.  Then she would take off and be gone, clearly with some urgent need to be anywhere else but in your arms.