the cats

These are the cats living with founders Sebastiaan and Evelien at Cowboy Cat Ranch in Texas. Most of them participated in cat-friendly scientific experiments. Aguereberry even contributed to three publications! 

January 2014 – "After we had decided we wanted to adopt two cats, we went to a shelter on a Saturday afternoon, just to have a look. It was not our intention to find two cats right then and there, but we fell in love with Aguereberry and Zappa. 

There were approximately 20 cats available for adoption in the shelter. Most cats were allowed to walk around in the main area and we interacted with a few of the more social ones. One of the volunteers drew our attention to a cat tower where a calico cat was perched on the top platform. We petted her for a while and she was very responsive, giving gentle head rubs. We had found Aguereberry! The volunteer told us Aguereberry was a little lazy and usually slept in this exact spot most of the time, but Aguereberry has proven her wrong and has shown us that she can actually be very playful.

On the other side of the room was a cage with a tortoiseshell cat. She had been found in the street, turned out to be pregnant, and had been in foster care while she was nursing her kittens. Now that her kittens were all adopted, it was her turn. While Evelien was petting her, she flopped on her side and completely stretched out. That was how we met Zappa. 

After we arrived home with them, Aguereberry immediately stepped out of her cat carrier and started exploring the house. We had named her after the gold mine era Death Valley explorer Pete Aguereberry, and her name fit her well. Zappa on the other hand was scared and did not want to come out of her cat carrier. We gave her all the time she needed, and after seven hours, she finally dared to set foot in her forever home." — written by Evelien  

October 2016 – "We entered the shelter and sat down on the floor. Two volunteers were already in the room. A couple of cats were on the floor, but most of them were on shelves higher up against the wall or on beams under the roof. Sebastiaan placed a sock with silver vine in front of him on the floor. I do not remember if any of the other cats came over to check out the sock and enjoy the smell, but I do remember that suddenly Pumpkin was there, responding intensely to it. 

We had not seen where she had come from, but one of the volunteers told us that she spent most of her time up on the shelves. Pumpkin gently bit Sebastiaan's hands a couple of times and he let her, and she continued to hang out with us. The volunteers told us that she was one of the longest residents of the shelter, having been there for about six months.

She was a senior cat, had been diagnosed with a heart disease (incorrectly, it later appeared), and did not show much affection to visitors. She was thus overlooked by most people. If she had not responded to the silver vine, we may not have noticed her either! Her suspected heart disease made us all the more interested in her, because Cowboy Cat Ranch is named after Cowboy, an old cat who died from heart failure. We thought she was adorable, and that is how Pumpkin came to live with us." — written by Evelien 

August 2017 – "A few days after hurricane Harvey made landfall near Aransas Pass in Texas, Sebastiaan read a tweet from a local shelter asking for help. The shelter had trouble taking care of their animals, because there had been no running water for several days and they only had a few hours of power per day from a generator. 

We loaded up both our cars with water and cat litter and drove down to the coast. The damage to the town was extensive. Power lines were down, trees were unrooted, and roofs were blown off. The shelter was largely undamaged, but because of the lack of water and power, it was decided that as many cats as possible should be relocated to the San Antonio Humane Society, who kindly offered their help. 

While the shelter volunteers were selecting nine cats that would go on a road trip with us back to San Antonio, we were quietly looking for a potential friend for Pumpkin. Despite all our efforts, Pumpkin had not been accepted by the rest of the cats and we had given her a separate space where she could be safe (and she loves it!). We hoped to find a cat who would be good company for Pumpkin.

Harvey (then named Sunshine) stood out because she seemed very sweet and got along well with all other cats in the room. She was more than a year old and had lived almost her entire life in the shelter! She had been the last of her litter to remain while all her brothers and sisters had been adopted. We drove Harvey and the eight other cats to the San Antonio Humane Society and after a quick checkup by the shelter's medical staff Harvey came home with us."
— written by Evelien