In this picture you can tell that Dewey is an outdoor cat. There is a smudge of grass stain on his front left paw. His back paws are grubby. He is worn out from all the running around. Though I guess an indoor cat could strike a similar pose when sleeping.
It didn’t cross my mind that we would not let him outside (having grown up in London, perhaps, with a cat flap through which the cat came and went). But T from the adoption center was cautious. Here in New York a lot of cats are indoor cats, who stay comfortable in their apartments, and the street cat scene is not for the faint-hearted.
We kept the name Dewey. It was next to his photo on the adoption center Powerpoint slide, when T said “how about this one?” because every now and then she rescues a cat that gives a vibe that it would be a good family cat (she couldn’t have been more right). “Dewey”…at first I thought “dewy-eyed” and the name felt flakey but then I thought Dewey Decimal system, then John Dewey and the idea of learning by doing, and rather than debate and decide a new name, Dewey he was, Dewey he is.
As may or may not be apparent from the photo, he has had his knocks. A distinct bend in his tail, from before he came to us. One ear a little shorter than the other, because the tip was cut off when he was neutered as an identifier because the vet thought he was being re-released to the streets. There was the time he swallowed a shoelace which had to be surgically removed. Now here he is, a four-pawed family member, comforter, entertainer, his own guy, tonight with a little grass stain on one of his paws as he takes a rest.
