One joke in our household is that I'm not allowed to go to PAWS anymore. Each of the two times my kids remember visiting the animal shelter under the naive premise of petting the cats, we came home with one of our own. The first one claimed us in cat-dog fashion, jumping on our laps and drooling when we pet her; we lived with her and her unique cat neediness for a year. Soon after, we found ourselves smitten with the second, the runt of a tumbling litter who was so tiny she walked effortlessly in the narrow gap between the cages and the wall of the shelter. Though we'd been warned about feline pride order and the recipe for disaster we were cooking up by introducing another female at home, we persisted. After some initial (feigned?) skepticism from cat one, the two became inseparable.
It may be indulgent to post cat pictures in this saturated world, but this one represents a high water mark in the representation of unfettered love.
Feisty & Winglet, 2007