Little Things Prove Ellie’s A Big Sweetheart

One of my favorite things about Ellie is that she has a big heart.

Ellie on top of CG.

Not literally, of course. If that was the case, this post would be completely different.

Rather I mean she’s more than just a love bug.

Sure, I could tell you the millions of reasons why she is the sweetest and happiest cat I’ve ever met. She will literally bounce her nose off my top lip when I make a kiss sound. She initiates every snuggle with CG, and most of the time, he doesn’t complain. Every morning when I wake up, she stretches all of her limbs, inevitably tenderly smushing the paw pads from one paw into my face. Every time she wakes up from a nap and looks at you, you would swear she’s thinking “I was hoping to see you!” She cuddles close, purrs often, and is always ready to have a good time.

Gosh, you can even tell how happy is she by looking at her tail. The happier she is the farther her tail curls over her back. If you look at her from above, it’s like we’ve folded her tail onto her back in the shape of a question mark.

She even recovers from scary moments like a champ. After one particularly terrifying tumble down the stairs, she took a moment to collect herself, then went right back to playing.

But the true testament of Ellie’s love has nothing to do with me. Or with any living thing, really.

I was convinced the other day what a sweetheart we have as I watched her near the food and water dishes. She was just sitting near them, closer than she is in the picture below, staring at the white tray we keep their dishes (and spills) on.

She then slowly and gently moved her paw toward the water dish and scooted her paw around part of the bottom edge. She did this a few more times, and finally she achieved her goal. There was a single kibble isolated on one side of the water dish. She let it sit there for a moment, all alone and removed from the rest of the scattered kibble on the tray, and just watched it.

Then, as if she had thought long and hard about it, she ate the kibble slowly and gently.

Ellie near the food and water dishes.

Now, I know this sounds crazy, and there are dozens of ways to interpret this. Ellie was just hungry. Maybe she was playing with her food.

But I don’t think either of those reasons are why she acted the way she did. Plus, it isn’t that she’s OCD and felt the kibble was out of place and needed to be exterminated, as her actions were to slow and gentle for that. And she wasn’t just hungry. No other pieces of kibble were eaten. And she’s not a simple or slow cat. When she knows what she wants, be it smooches, a CG snuggle or her dinner, that girl goes after it with gusto.

No, none of those reasons could have been her motivation. While watching her, I couldn’t help but think that she found this lonely kibble, felt bad for it, and wanted to give it a home.

In her belly.

It was her slow, methodical process, her gentleness, the appearance that she was truly contemplating what was best for this kibble touched my heart.

So I’m convinced that if Ellie can show compassion toward even the smallest, insignificant kibble, then I never have to wonder about how she feels about me.