ABSTRACT
However, I wasn’t going to ask any questions. The week before, we’d spent several hours falling in love with a charming pair of kitt ens, only to be told at the adoption counter that we wouldn’t be allowed to take them both home because they were of diff erent sexes and might mate before they were old enough for their mandatory neutering. This time we’d decided in advance to select two males. I picked out an elegant, long-haired black tom with a white tuxedo front, whose name seemed obviously to be Max, and at fi rst my husband selected a particularly frisky, feisty coal-black kitt en who was great fun to watch in his cage. But when we put them together in a playroom they immediately spat and att acked and tried to scratch each other’s eyes out. This was not the sort of relationship we’d had in mind.
