Like Cats and Dogs: The Moth Radio Hour

You can also get a product market, then you can get your first big enterprise.

With KaE, the development of the online market, the advantages of the companies are also the advantages of the company. And that's the question as it is. The topic of security and compliance is really simple. It's quite long, it's almost out.

“That's why many startups are also open and open.”

And if it's not open, it's still open. Yet start an Alphanta.com. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Alistair Bane. In this episode, we'll be celebrating the bonds between people and animals.

I live in Colorado with an assorted pack of dogs and foster dogs, including two formerly

feral dogs and a pit bull that carries his teddy bear with him wherever he goes. I've learned so much from my own pets, about courage, resilience, loyalty, and I even developed some fairly advanced reapulstring skills, because sometimes, a sofa will be mistaken for a rather large chute toy. In this hour, we will hear seven storytellers share stories about themselves and their

relationship to the animal kingdom.

“Katherine Palmer told this first story at an open-mic story slam we produced in Pittsburgh,”

where we partner with Public Radio Station WESA, live from the Rex Theater, here's Katherine Palmer. I'm a city person, I wasn't born in the city.

I moved to the city to the south side of Pittsburgh as an adult.

Now, city people expect a couple things, light and noise, and we get pretty nervous if it gets too dark or too quiet. Now, we're the only people in our family that live in the city. My husband's four sisters live in dark quiet places, and the darkest quiet is home as my sister-in-law who runs a hostel with her husband and her two little girls, in the middle

of nowhere. This kind of nowhere is where there's no cell service, no internet access, and I found myself there one night after having been an emitting in Philly, which is a very nice, noisy bright city. We had a lovely dinner, and we were waiting to check in the next hostel, guess, and it

was getting later, and that was a problem because my niece was going to have a performance at that night, and somebody was going to have to stay behind, so I volunteered, what could go wrong. I would be in a very dark quiet place with no cell reception, letting strangers into the house.

Perfect. So, I weighed them off, and I went to the living room to read a book, it turns out I can't read if it's completely quiet, I need a little bit of noise, so I headed to the kitchen to get a drink because you can do that in the dark and quiet, and I stopped in my tracks because there was a snake in front of me.

A big snake, like a foot long, like maybe a baby snake, and the cat was pulling at it on the kitchen floor, so this is one of those moments where you stop and you try to make sense of something that absolutely does not make sense, so I assessed the situation. There was a baby snake on the floor, at least I assumed it was a baby, it was very small. The cat seemed to be involved in how it got there, and oddly familiar with it, and my

nieces were known to have strange pets up in their room, so I had to assume there was a mother snake that had a baby, but at this point I realized I know very little about the reproductive habits of snakes, and with no internet access this wasn't going to change. So the only reasonable explanation is that this was a pet snake, or the baby of a pet snake, and I needed to keep it safe from the cat, so three things were clear, it was

not going to touch this snake. I did need to do something to keep the cat away from it, and this was a perfect opportunity to become the favorite aunt. I could save the pet baby snake, so I got a clear casserole dish, out of the cabinet, and put it over the snake, so the snake could see out, but the cat couldn't get at it, problem

solved. So I headed back to the living room with my drink, but I could not relax because I got

“thinking how much oxygen is in a casserole, and how much oxygen does a baby snake need?”

And to this day I don't know the answer to either of those questions, but I decided it would be safe if I went back like every 10 minutes and just lifted the casserole, there'd be new oxygen, we'd be fine, so I headed back to the kitchen, and there were four baby snakes.

the snakes, and right then there's a knock on the door, the hostile people have arrived.

“Now, the good news is they don't need to come through the kitchen, so I get them settled,”

but now it's been like 15 minutes, I've got to get back and get oxygen to all of the baby snakes. So I'm back, and there are five new baby snakes. Okay, so I realized two things, one snakes have litters of babies, clearly, and two, I don't have any more clear baking dishes.

So I go over the hostile to raid their baking dishes, and I come back with an armful, and

there are two more babies snakes added to the crowd, so with the height of this, there are 11 baby snakes in glass cages all over the kitchen floor.

“This is now a full time activity, just getting them oxygen, and furthermore, it's not”

a big kitchen, so I'm using the baking dishes as stepping stones, as I navigate this space. I am all in, but it's okay, because really, all I have to do is wait for my nieces to come home and shower me in love and praise for what I have gone through to protect their pet baby snakes. I'm kind of growing attached to my charges, and I hear the car, their home, and my older nieces comes in the door, and she says, "Oh, not again. This is not the

greeting I expected." And she and her sister, unceremoniously, lift up the baking dishes, grab the snakes, and throw them out the kitchen door into the forest. So later, I would find that adults snakes come into their basement in lay eggs, now I know how snakes reproduce, and the cat can't resist just depositing them all over the house.

So as we're starting to clean up, my sister-in-law turns to me and says, "Now, if this ever

happens again, the look on my face must have made it clear. This was never going to happen

again." So I settled into wash 11 casserole dishes and look forward to going back to the city. That was Katherine Palmer. I just love the compassion she had for all those baby snakes.

“The other day I was thinking that maybe I had too many baking dishes, but I think I'll hold”

on to them now. Katherine works as an audiologist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her sister-in-law's family has since moved to the city because baby snakes in the kitchen eventually lost their appeal. Our next story comes from Chatech Jaggi. He told it live on stage at the Athenium Theater in Chicago, where we partner with Public Radio Station WBEZ. Here's Chatech.

My wife showed me a picture of her grandmother petting a lion cub and said, "We need to at least adopt a dog ASAP." I knew this day was going to come. She grew up in the family that owned entire animal zoos, lived all her life with pets capable of immediately devouring her. My last relationship with the dog was when it had its teeth in my butt cheeks. I was nine years old in India and was dancing in front of the straight dog that often

rested outside my grandmother's home. To think that she still continued to feed him, me and my heart and my ass. So I asked my wife how about we get a foster dog instead. Meaning, we get to host the dog for a few days temporarily until someone else can adopt them permanently. The foster agency heard her request and my wife came home with coconut. I should do mix with a silky black coat covering entire body. It looked like my wife brought home

a bunch of synthetic wigs. Coconut had a cone around her neck, reminiscent of one of the characters from the handmaids tale. That was because she got spayed that morning.

now painted as a grim picture of her past. I've worked from home, by the way. So from

“the next morning, coconut and I became involuntary housemates. On day one, I learned that”

she doesn't really make eye contact and stays hidden under a table all day long. On day two, I realized she doesn't even respond to her name. So I figured maybe the foster agency just assigned the name coconut to her and I started to cry 100 different names the same day. All day I went, all of them. Cheddar, buttercup. Todd. I knew her hearing was intact because she leaped at me when she heard me open a kidcat. So I figured it out.

She just didn't care. And so I just sat next to her throughout the day. At one time she

“protruded her little head from under the table, rested it on my leapt and on my lap and slept.”

I couldn't help but notice that she snores. I actually had a Harley Davidson engine in her diaphragm. On day three, she gets called in for an extensive knee surgery. I had just started to be less queasy about her space car. So I just reminded myself that I was just a temporary host and she was going to go to another foster home soon anyway. But that night coconut came back home from the wet, crying and continued to cry into the night. She had 12

staples on her leg that was cut from her thigh all the way down to her foot. Combined with

“the space car, almost a quarter of her little body was in stitches. I had asked for an easy”

dog because of my inexperience. But this dog needed to be consoled round the clock. And I couldn't even bring myself to look at her staple leg. So my wife took care of her and I watched them both from a distance too weak hearted to even come close. I have seen animal suffering,

I've never won that was under my care. This felt personal, like I was responsible to put

her in her misery. And unexpectedly, this the same line of thinking brought me the solution. I reminded myself of all the stray dogs back in India, including the ones that bit me. How many of them often had open wounds with no shelter to recover in. Coconut at least has had healthy food, meds, and a loving home. As bad as it was, I had to remind myself that she was in safe hands. So the next morning I woke up and I approached her gently but firmly,

lifted her in my arms as she looked me in the eyes for the first time. And in our own little

way, I let her know that she was going to be fine, that this was going to pass. It was like both of us had emerged from under our respective tables we were hiding under. A month later her scars healed up and it was now time to find her a permanent home to be adopted in. Her cone was gone and she had started to camouflage in black rugs effortlessly. She won, but we had failed at being fostered parents. Our adopted coconut is at home

right now, knowing well that she's too precious to be let go of and is right now waiting for her second dinner. That was Gitech Jaggi. Gitech is currently working on a book of essays and coaches other storytellers. Coco is enjoying her golden years, often going on road trips throughout the country with her new family. Coco has her own stroller for times when she doesn't feel

a senior dog rather than newborn baby in the carriage. I absolutely love senior dogs. They

“are mellow, are well past the furniture eating stage and have gained a lifetime of knowledge.”

In fact, my senior dog has gained the knowledge that I can't leave home without him if he berries the keys under the deck. Coming up, kept people versus dog people when the moth radio hour continues. The moth radio hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Next up, we have a story from Katie Faka. She told it live on the stage at the Crescent Ballroom

in Phoenix, where we partner with Public Radio Station KJCC. Here's Katie Faka. I love to hate cats. I come from a family that doesn't particularly care for cats. In fact, my mom not only dislikes cats very much, but she has an actual cat phobia. And like any good old-fashioned familial conditioning that fear has been passed down to me. And despite my

“best efforts to avoid these creatures, somehow they have highlighted some pretty important moments”

in my life. The very first conversation I had with my husband was regarding cats. In 2009,

my sister's dog had a litter of puppies and his family took my favorite one. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I sent him a message on Facebook saying something along the lines of, "I'm so happy for you guys. She's the best." I do have remember exactly what my husband said to me. It was one sentence in it red. I'm more of a cat person. And I thought to myself, this guy is rude and he's a cat person. That's two strikes. But my husband also happens to be tall,

darken handsome, so what are you going to do? A year later, we started dating. And things got pretty serious, and we started to spend a lot of time together. And as a result, I spent a lot of time with his cat Frank. Frank was an indoor outdoor orange tabby. He was a really proficient hunter, and he would bring in sometimes living, sometimes dead, lizards, mice, hummingbirds. And although I'm told this is a sign of love and infection, I did not care for having a half

decapitated lizard dropped into my lap. And this was like immersion therapy for me. I was having reoccurring nightmares that thousands of cats were coming in from every window and door of my house going to scratch off my face. But I had to make a decision. I was falling in love with this rude cat guy, and Frank came along with them. So I decided to learn about Frank. And as I learned about him, my fear started to lessen, and we developed a bond. He would greet me at the door

when I would walk in and roll around on his back. It was pretty cute. I would give him my shoes to indulge his weird shoe fetish. He would meow and scratch incessantly at my door for in the morning to let me know he wanted his food bowl topped off. And as time went on, our bond grew stronger,

and he really became my first cat friend. In 2015, I got a call from a dear childhood friend of mine

Matt. And I don't have enough time to tell you all the things I'd like to tell you about Matt. But I'd like to highlight my favorite qualities about him. Magnetic, hilarious, intelligent,

“and I love to spend time with him. And I'll never forget it. I was pacing around IKEA as he was”

explaining to me that he hadn't been feeling well, and he went to the doctor. And they discovered that his colon was covered in tumors, and he was diagnosed with a really aggressive form of colon cancer. And I know there's many of you out there that can empathize with the feeling of your gut dropping, and desperately wanting to do or say something to make something go away, and there's nothing. He had a girlfriend that uprooted her life in Los Angeles to be here with him during his course of

treatment. And I started a few real push and pull. The push of wanting to spend all the time that I

to be intrusive during a sensitive time. I didn't want to take away time that he could be spending

“with other people, and I did not want to remind my friend that he was sick. So I was reserved,”

to keep it really light and checking in. Hey, how's it going? Thinking of you praying for you. Let me know if you need anything. And that was it. And in 2017, Matt died, and I was devastated. And I felt this deep feeling of regret not having had the opportunity, but more importantly, the courage to have told my friend how much he meant to me while he was here. I didn't tell him that I loved him. I didn't tell him that he had changed my life for the better. I didn't tell him

that he was one of the best people I had the privilege of knowing. And I didn't tell him how much I would miss him when he was gone. Later that year, his girlfriend decided it was time to get her life back on track and move back to California. And in the process, she couldn't bring her cat with her to the apartment she had found. And without hesitation, I said I would take him, and I immediately started having anxiety. Because while I knew and light shaped Frank, my husband's

cat, I was not sold on cats. I was still really scared of them, and I had visions of this thing coming into my life and being really mean and destroying my house. But I did it without hesitation because it felt like something I could grab onto. Something that I could do for my friend by lightening the load for someone that had loved and cared for him during his time of need.

And luckily for me, aside from taking a massive dump on my brand new couch, the first night,

he was in our home. Juan Carlos, the giant Russian blue cat, is one of the nicest animals you'll ever meet. He's a stage five cleaner. He wants to snuggle me from head to toe and he's part of the family. In the fall of last year, Frank got really sick. My husband's cat, my first cat friend, and he was dying of kidney failure. And we had to take him to the vet for the awful vet appointment that I had only ever heard about. My husband and I drove home with our empty pet carrier. We crawled into

bed with Juan Carlos. I thought about my friend Matt. I thought about Frank and I cried. I cried over a cat. I cried over one cat as I was deeply comforted by another. And now I hate to love cats. Thank you. That was Katie Focca. Katie is a marriage and couples therapist and spends her time outside of work with her husband Ricky, and of course, Juan Carlos.

Our next story is from Beth Bradley at the Denver Moss Storyslam where we partner with public

radio station KU in C. I was in the audience that night and it's always great to hear from a fellow dog

person. Here is Beth. So Susie was not a perfect dog, but she was our dog and we loved her. My mom first laid eyes on her at the animal shelter and she just fell in love with Susie's cute little Foxy face and she had this curly tail and thick black fur. So my whole family, my dad, my mom,

“and my two sisters and I headed over there to see if we had a good vibe with Susie. And I do remember”

that the animal shelter lady pointed out she was worried that my dad and Susie might not be bonding that well. And that was probably true. My dad is not that much of an animal person. And kind of things of pets is just like another hassle to deal with. But as usual, the rest of us overruled

my dad and we got to bring Susie home and she became our first family dog. So to be fair,

Susie really could be kind of a hassle. Her favorite hobby was barking at anyone that dared to walk by her house. And the other things she liked to try to do was escape. So one time she actually combined those hobbies and she launched herself through the front window of her house through the screen in pursuit of some strangers. So we had to go lower her back into our house. But on the other hands she could be very sweet. So like one time I remember in high school I had broken up with a

boyfriend and I was crying and Susie came and just like leaned up against me and I could tell she was like, you know, got your back. So but over the years my dad is feeling towards as he didn't really warm up. He kind of just tolerated her generally thought of her as pretty annoying. But

“honestly my dad could make my sisters and I feel that way too sometimes. Like yeah, like it was”

he was hard to ask him for help and he could kind of, you know, respond to us in the same way that he was annoyed with Susie the dog. But one night we were all sitting down to dinner. We were going to get to watch TV and he dinner at the same time in the TV room which was a big deal. So we're all

might not have been as into us as we were into her. So she really just mainly liked waiting at

“the window for people to bark at. But dinner time was one time she would deign to be with us”

because she liked to eat the crumbs off the floor. So it was very suspicious that she wasn't around. So we're calling for her like Susie Susie. She's not coming. So we figure she must be outside so my two sisters and I go outside to look for her. We're calling for some more. We don't we don't see her but we do see this little shape toward the back of the yard. So we're running toward it and as we get closer we hear this kind of like weird low weezing sound and we get there.

We see that it's Susie and it's her little limp body. She's laying there and she's actually

gotten her head stuck in a drain from the house and she's suffocating. So we are panicking we're screaming for my parents. They run outside and it's kind of a blur like my mom finds the kitchen scissors to actually like cut her out of this tube and we free her but by that time she's

“not breathing and we're just panicking. So my dad's scoops her up and I just remember her little”

head just kind of lost to the side and her eyes had kind of glassed over. So we run inside the house and just like total pandemonium crying trying to find the vet's number. My dad's just seeing her on the couch holding her and we're kind of looking at him. He's looking up at us and without saying anything he cubs his hand around Susie's snout and he puts his mouth on her mouth and he blows and then he does it again and we're just in like total stud and silence and another thing to

know about Susie is we had seen her eat like a lot of disgusting crap in her life. Like she literally would eat crap and like you know dead birds and that kind of thing. So I really would like to know the animal shelters lady, landmills shelter ladies opinion of their bond in that moment. So he does it a few more times, he blows a few more times and then it was like a spell lifted Susie's eyes like pop open like I see the life just flood into them just like sleeping beauty or something and she's

kind of blinking and my dad sits her down. We're all just like in complete shock Susie's looking up at us like what and we have the vet on the phone by that time and we're explaining what happened and he's like well is she like walking around and everything and we're like yeah and he's like I think she's okay so she was okay and she actually lived a very long time after that she lived a very happy life. She became old enough to become incontinent actually and like she so my

that was one more thing my dad got to deal with was changing Susie's dog diapers but I thought a lot about that moment in the years since like my dad looking up at us and us looking at him and I don't

“think that he realized his love for her and that's what made him kiss our dog on the mouth. I think”

that he really just couldn't stand to see our hearts broken and he did it because he loved us so I think dogs are not perfect, dads are not perfect but love itself is perfect and sometimes it even gives you magic powers. That was Beth Bradley that there's a marketing content manager and has been listening to the moths as she was a teenager. Beth and her sisters all have their own dogs today and the three dogs all adore their granddad. She believes that feeling is mutual.

Over the years I've met many people who started out as reluctant dog or cat owners. My stepdad was somewhat reluctant to have a dog until I asked him and my mother to watch a foster dog for a

few days while I was out of town. On the second day I was gone I got a text asking "what if we don't

want to give him back?" Preston ended up living a long life with them and a accumulating a stock pile of plus toys that rivaled the inventory of major toy stores. By the way you can check out the moth.org for information about moth story sams in your area and you can find us on social media at the moth. Coming up sometimes we rescue animals and sometimes they save us when the moth radio hour continues.

You're listening to the moth radio hour I'm Alistair Bay. Those of us who love our pets

“will go to great links for them. I've done emergency vet runs and blizzards fed orphan puppies”

every hour around the clock and recently I searched a quarter acre of backyard in the dark. When my border collie stole and buried my pit bull's teddy bear and he couldn't fall asleep without it. Our next story comes from Lisa Shult about her dog Sadie. She shared it live on stage of the Miramar theater in Milwaukee where we partner with public radio stations Wpr and radio Milwaukee. This Lisa Shult live at the moth. My husband Mike and I have an air-dale

terrier named Sadie. We love Sadie's only empty nesters can love their dog. Now we were both married before and brought into her marriage children and our kids have expressed jealousy over Sadie

“because A, well A, B, C, and D, Sadie has both her parents with her.”

One of the highlights of our week is we always take a good long walk with Sadie on Sundays. Now

have you know tomorrow is Sadie's third to last chemo therapy treatment. She is in total remission aids. Thank you. Thank you. And on Sunday mornings it's our habit to take a long walk with Sadie. These days we walk on the Starbucks for we all rest for a little bit. Sit outside no matter what the weather, where the fools they're in January sitting outside with our monkeys and then we walk home again. We used to go to the dog park and while we're toasts I don't know if any of you are familiar

with it. It's a great place to walk. There's the big open area with all the frozen dog poop in the winter

“of the melting dog poop in the spring and the ikky dog poop in the summer.”

Then there's a huge wooded area where there are abandoned concrete walkways and curbed roadways. There's ginormous and beautiful concrete staircases that majestically descend into what I assume were formal gardens. So you still love to go out there. Sadie could run around off leash. We'd walk around through these woods in these pathways and we would often end up at the one and only proper cemetery and near the cemetery is a pond. I don't think it's natural because it's

perfectly rectangular but it was a good place for, I don't know but I grew up in a small telltale

and we'd never had square puns. But there are always geese and in ducks on the pond and Sadie

would like to chase them. So one winter's day, one February day but it was one of those February days that give the promise of spring. You know those days it's warm but you still have to dress for winter because it is winter and because this is Wisconsin but you knew spring was gonna come probably by June 5th or so. The skies are blue, the sun was shining. It was above freezing. It was nice out but we had to dress for winter. I had the old lady boots on because I'm an old lady.

You know the kind with a really ikky fake fur around the top and I had one of those poofy winter jackets on it was red. So we walked. We went down to the pool to the pond. Sadie chased the ducks in the geese off the ice and then she saw an open water so she went to get a drink. Sadie walked up to the edge. The ice broke. Sadie went in. This is our favorite. We call her the good daughter. She's in the water. Dog paddling. She does not swim on purpose. She likes to wave but she does

not swim on purpose and she's got those big old eyes and she's looking like that and she puts a little paws up on the ice and it breaks and she puts a little paws up on the ice and it breaks. Now I don't know this is a fairly young audience I hope you've all seen the movie it's a wonderful life. It's a wonderful movie but in the movie a little hairy Bailey falls to the ice. All the kids make a human chain. The army crawl out on the ice. They reach out a shovel to a little hairy Bailey.

He grabbed on the pull him in. I've seen it's a wonderful life at least 30 times. I know what to do. Two problems. There's only me in my we don't have a shovel but this is the good daughter.

he's not even part of the chain. God knows it was at this point it's fine my whole vision is kind

“of tunneled right? You haven't had that happen. I'm looking at the good daughter. I'm on the ice.”

I'm crawling crawling. I reach out to the ice breaks. Now it is February. I'm in the water. I'm dog paddling too. We're both dog paddling. Now the vision is getting really small because I'm going to die. But I'm going to eventually have to hold Sadie's head above water while I'm paddling with my feet while my husband might try to figure out what to do. So I'm paddling paddling paddling. And of course I put my hands up the water, the ice breaks,

put my hands up the ice breaks. And through that panic, through that fog I hear a voice and it's

Mike and he's saying, "Honey, stand up!" I was like, "Hey, hey, hey, hey!" I stopped paddling. I'll think I'll

“drown. I put my feet down and I feel mocked. The kind of mock that will grab you and drag you in.”

So I paddled out. "Honey, stand up!" Put my feet down a little further. I feel solid earth. I stand up. I look Sadie's up. I'm shaking off running to daddy. He's like, "Hey, hey, look at Bob's doing." I walk to shore. What's both filled with water, Jack? I learned something that day. Next time you feel like you're over your head. You're drowning. You're losing your nerve. Just stand up. That was Lisa's show. Sadie responded well to the chemotherapy and lived before 10 years old.

Today Lisa and her husband Mike offer dog-sitting services and when they're not caring for K9 guests, they love to travel.

“Next we go to Boston to hear a story Patrick Cleary shared at an open-mic night. Here's Patrick.”

Thanks. So in the last year of her life, my cat Rita had a vomiting problem. She vomited everywhere. Now, she didn't like to vomit on anything hard. She liked to be on soft surfaces. So she would jump up on the bed or on the couch. And all of that was a little bit difficult to clean up. She was a lady though. She would warn you. She had this, this meow. She would go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" And she had not only trained me. She trained all my friends and family

that if we were like having people over to dinner, if you heard, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Everybody would get up and run to wherever she was and put her on the floor. Now Rita was the first of what I call the indeterminate cat sitting adoptions, which is if anybody says, "Could you take care of my cat, but it's for an indeterminate amount of time?" You've adopted a cat, right? It's now happened to me multiple times. And I fall for it every time. It's like, "We just don't know just a couple of days

and then a long time later you're like, "This is my cat." And I got her from a friend of mine who I had never

met. This was back in the days. Well, it was back in the days when the internet was new and it was bulletin board system and a woman who lived nearby said, "My husband, I need to leave him and he said, "If I leave, he'll kill the animals." And so I said, "Okay, well I'll take in your cat and she also had a little dog." And I took care of them for a couple of weeks and then when she got herself established, she came back and she said, "Well, I can take the dog, but even though my husband's

now in prison, he got me pregnant." And I can't clean a cat box because of the Toxil Plas Moses, pregnant women aren't supposed to clean out cat boxes. And so what I didn't tell her was that I wasn't supposed to be cleaning cat boxes either because I had just been diagnosed with HIV and Toxil Plas Moses is really bad for people with HIV as well. But she said, "Reader was a 17-year-old cat. She wasn't going to live for very much longer. And at the time, I felt like I might not live

very much longer either because my CD4 account was in doing so well. And because I'm really a drama queen, I figured we would just sit on the couch. The two of us were wasting away and they'd find us because we had died exactly at the same time.

another. Now, Rita was declod. The woman who had her before me didn't declod her. The woman

“before her had declod the cat. But Rita also liked to pretend that she was scratching the furniture”

and she'd look at me. And because I'm a good guy, I'd say stop that and she'd be like and she'd walk away. It made her feel good. It made her feel dangerous. Now, because Rita was 17 years old, she only lasted eight more years. She went and we went through a lot together. I went through a really hard time. Not only had I gone through HIV with a lot of medications that didn't work out for me. I also had lost my house.

I'd lost my job. I'd lost my car. She was with me the whole time just pretending to scratch the furniture and throwing up on it. So it worked out really well. But eventually, it was her time.

“And I was in a much better place. And so I did have to make the decision to put her down”

after reaching 25. I mean, that's 630 in human years. I would want to go to. But she did teach me a number of lessons. One is that if anybody ever tells you

can you take my cat for a few days, you own a cat. The second is, if someone wants to feel dangerous,

just let them. And the third is if you are going to feel like a badass and throw up, be a lady. And warn people about it. Thank you. That was Patrick Cleary. Patrick is a cat owner, playwright, and storyteller from Boston, Massachusetts. Since Rita, Patrick has been the proud parent of four other cats. Some of whom were actually adopted on purpose. Thank you, Patrick, for the wisdom that there is no such thing

as the temporary cat. Our final story is told by Linda Torres at a slam we produced in Seattle, which is supported by public radio station, KU-OW. Live from the free-mott, Abby Arts Center. Here's Linda Torres. The happiest moment in my life was when I jumped into my husband's arms, and I got back home from Afghanistan. Yeah, yeah. So he picked me up from Fort Benning, Georgia, if you know where that is. And we drove to DC, where I was stationed.

I was so excited to see Gina. She hadn't seen me in six or seven months, and she came home,

and it would always be an empty house. And then she saw me, and she was just like, "Oh,

oh that's my person!" So she came up to me and ran up to me, and she had her tail wagging just enthusiastically. And she came up to me and kissed me and circled me. So that was wonderful. So the next day, Adam, my husband, went to work, is really busy and had a lot of words to do. I, on the other hand, had a lot of days off. I was really lonely and alienated, and I found out that I had a back injury, so I couldn't run or do yoga or do any of those things that I'd like to do for stress relief. So

what I did was I walked to Gina, a ton, and I played fetch with her, and I read books about war stories, because I felt connected to the people and the books and stuff. But Adam was acting a little strange. He would come home late, and he would be really withdrawn and quiet and stuff. So I sat him down and I was just like, "What is up?" And he said, "You were gone,

and I liked it. I never wanted to be married to." So yeah, so it didn't work out, so, so yeah,

but divorce was still really hard for me. I mean, I thought I was going to be with him for the rest of my life,

“so I remember deciding to buy a nice purple climbing rope from REI, and I was going to”

logistically figure out, I was going to go on a walk with Gina, and logistically I was going to figure out which tree to hang myself on. So I finally found a tree, and then Gina found the stick,

the stick. So I threw the stick, and she came back to me, and she had the biggest smile

“and enthusiastically wagging tail. And that moment I knew that I had to take care of her,”

and she was going to take care of me. So the army decided to move me across the country to Washington State, and I told Adam that I wanted to take Gina with me because she was my best friend during this really dark time. He told me he couldn't say no to me. So we moved here. Washington State is there's something so transformative about living here, and that's, I don't know if it's the air,

the views, the mountain. It was fantastic. It's fantastic. So after you're a living here, the army said

you're going to deploy again. So I sent Gina to stay with my family down in San Diego. My dad really

“enjoyed it. He said that he had found a partner to keep him healthy. So after a couple of weeks,”

the army said, "Just kidding, you got canceled for that deployment, so I went down to her chiever." So my dad was just like, "Hey, can I have your dog?" I said, "No, but you could." I said, "No, but you could, like, during the flu season, I work a ton, and I'm going to be working on grad school and stuff, so you could keep her for a couple of months." So flu season came around, and I sent Gina down to San Diego this time I didn't go with her. She, my parents noticed that

she was drinking a lot of water, and that she was really tired. And we thought, like, she was really anxious from the flight and just really tired. So the next afternoon, my mom decided to cook her bacon, and Gina came up to her and she collapsed, and that was it. Yeah, the next couple of days were a blur, painful. I knew I had still one person who loved her as much as I did, and that was Adam.

Though we grew apart in passions, we loved, we had the same love for a wonderful amazing dog.

I am so thankful that I had her. She saved me. Through her, I learned about focus, joy, and true love. Thank you. That was Linda Torres. Linda has since moved to Philadelphia with her golden retriever Ari, where she earned her doctorate in nursing practice. She continues to work and volunteer in the Veterans community. Thank you for your service, Linda.

To see photos of Linda and her dog, as well as other storytellers and their pets, go to the

“moth.org. While you're there, have you ever felt like you have a story you'd like to tell us?”

It might be about friends of the four or two-legged variety about a temporary cat or temporary house guest. If so, you can pitch us a story right on our site or call 877-799 moth. That's 877-799-6684. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth. This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison,

Catherine Burns, and Alistair Bane, a storyteller from Colorado, who also hosted this show. Co-producer is Ficky Merrick, Associate Producer Emily Couch, Grand Slam Coaching by Jody Owl. The rest of the most leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janesse, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Arena Clouche, Susan Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza.

Moth stories are true as remembered in a firm by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the drift of the music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound, podcast music, production support,

the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media, and Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

“Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including Executive Producer Leah Rees Dennis.”

For more about our podcast for information on pitching this your own story and everything else,

go to our website TheMoth.org.