Chobie

by Melissa
(North Carolina, USA)

This is Chobie. We took him in because he lived with our neighbors but they didn't take very well care of him. When we found him we didn't know he was our neighbors so we put up signs in our neighborhood.

The owners came forward and told us he was theirs and that they were moving soon. We had grown attached to him so we didn't want him to go. This happened around March of 2008.

Our neighbors haven't moved yet and they never ask how he is. He comes in our house and lays on our beds and we've even taken him to the vet and his rightful owners haven't said a word about him to us.

We found out his real name is "Tomas O'Mally"-after the Disney movie "The Aristocats". We changed his name to Chobie because our mom is from Peru and has an accent and we were gonna call him Chubby but she pronounced it as "chobee" (haha). We just decided to spell it differently.

We think his owners called him "Kitty" for a while because he responded to that well and not to "Tomas O'Mally". Now he fully responds to Chobie (sometimes "Kitty" still).

One common misconception about him is his cheeks. They are abnormally round and large. My cousin told people he had tumors in his cheeks because of how they looked. But the veterinarian said he was fine. His cheeks really just make him even cuter than usual.

He mated with another cat we named Sasha and we are expecting kittens (anytime now). My grandma says she wants one of the kittens with cheeks just like his!

He comes and goes as he wants, we kept him as an Outdoor Cat since we took him in. We worry about him every night when he doesn't come home - and he always does (unless he's out with Sasha). We care about him so much!

Right now we have 3 other cats and they don't get along very well. Two are boys (Simba and Tommy), the oldest is a girl (Fluffy). Chobie plays with the boys but stays away from Fluffy because she'll only hit him.

It's funny now. My brother and sister and I took him in while my mom was on a buisness trip in Spain. We kept him in the garage and when my mom got back we yelled "Surprise!" as we showed him to her and we called him a "Welcome Back gift". My mom said we couldn't keep him but now we've become so accustomed to him around here that we couldn't live without him.