I met a few new people at the assisted living residence on this week’s therapy cat visit. In fact, the first lady I saw was new, or at least new to me. And she was so excited to see me! I sat next to her and we posed for the guy taking photos on the staff tablet.

The next resident I saw was one of my regulars — a cat loving guy who has slowly been fading in the years he’s been at the residence. I was as happy to see him as he was to see me, and I gave him some head butts.

I was in a head butt sort of mood. My human brought me over to see one of my regulars — the lady who likes my high fives. But I was more interested in the guy on the other side of the sofa, even though he was asleep! I gave him a few head butts, but he stirred only long enough to brush off a few strands of cat fur. My human and the staff were mystified about why I wanted to pay any attention to him. But that’s my business and not theirs.

The nonverbal woman we always visit wasn’t in the big room when we got there. Then early in our visit, we saw a staff member leading her in and sitting her down on a sofa. She looked at us expectantly while we visited a couple other residents. Finally we were able to stop by, and she got a chance to pet me and hang out with me. She tried to lean over and kiss me…but she wasn’t very good at leaning over. I didn’t mind. One of the great things about therapy pets is our ability to meet people at their own level of physical or cognitive ability.

One of our regulars is now wheelchair bound, and we stopped by to visit him. And I met another wheelchair bound woman I hadn’t seen before, and she was enchanted with me. I even got to spend some time in her lap, which doesn’t happen very often.

One of our regulars — the friendly woman who follows us around sometimes — was asleep on a sofa when we got there. We thought she was going to sleep through our whole visit and miss us, but one of the staff members woke her up and I got to spend time with her. So the visit ended really well.