Who knows how it came to pass that I ended up with two cats. It wasn’t like I’d planned on adopting one before moving to Vietnam. Growing up, I had a dog. A King Charles Cavalier Spaniel named Patch who, frankly, I hadn’t been the best owner to. I still remember the day my parents told me and my siblings Patch had died. We’d just returned from a family holiday, got into the car at Narita Airport when they broke the news. He was old, sick, and he’d passed while we were on holiday but they chose not tell us until we’d returned, not wanting to ruin our trip. My sister cried. My brother and I didn’t. That wasn’t out of any lack of sadness, but I suppose we were going through our private realisations of how we could’ve been better owners. He stared out one car window, I stared out the other, and for the drive back I thought about the number of times I’d shortened my walks with Patch because I wanted to go home. About how I hadn’t cuddled with him on the sofa enough, petting and telling him how much of a good boy he was. There’s a quote, I don’t know who said it, about having a pet: They might only be here for a part of our lives, but to them you are their whole life. After Patch had gone I’d often thought about having another pet, but those thoughts never felt like anything more than passing fancies, not anything I’d ever make happen. That was until I came to Saigon.
It’s impossible to explain why I have two cats without talking about Aidan, a buddy and one third of District 0. He was in Saigon through Covid and once whispers of lockdown measures spread, he decided it was now or never. He adopted an orange kitten he named Cam, went through something of a nightmare during the first few months because she hadn’t been neutered and went into heat. Those were long nights, he says now with equal humour and horror. Cam would yowl for hours on end, preventing him from getting any sleep. Since then, everything improved. Though as a result of the sheltered life Cam was forced to live as a kitten during Covid, she grew up wary of others. More on that later.
Six months after moving to Saigon, Aidan told me he was going back home to Canada for two months—Would I take care of Cam while he was gone? At that point I’d been talking about adopting a cat but I hadn’t bit the bullet. The way he saw it, I could take care of Cam and depending on how that went, I could decide whether I wanted to adopt one for myself. Of course his reasoning was sound but I hadn’t even met Cam, and by then he’d told me a number of times how she wasn’t good with strangers. She was a scaredy cat, through and through. For some reason I said why not.
The two months with Cam weren’t bad. She didn’t come out from under the sofa for the first few days, and whenever I peeked underneath and said Hello, she’d either hiss or stare back with confusion, wondering if I was friend or foe. She warmed up after a while, emerging from her cave to sniff my feet and rub her cheeks against the legs of the coffee table, the corner of the refrigerator, anything, really, that she could rub up against. Still, whenever I tried to give her a pet or a smooch she’d flinch, hesitate, turn the other way, and that pretty much happened all throughout the time I took care of her. At some point, fed up with the lack of cuddling, I decided she was going to get a hug whether she liked it or not, and from then on I picked her up whenever I wanted. Sometimes she squirmed, other times she didn’t seem to mind. I figured it was progress, whether real or not. Though my two months with Cam weren’t exactly the dream cat-caretaking experience, I knew once I had her that there was no way I wouldn’t be adopting my own. It had to happen.
A week or so before Aidan’s return, I visited Lucky Shelter, a place run by an English and Vietnamese husband and wife duo. They had more than sixty cats at their home, and the lot of them swarmed me while introductions went around—That’s Mick, she likes to play, that’s Keith, he does his own thing, and there’s Rambo, we found him all by himself one evening… By the time I left I’d been brushed up against, nuzzled up to, meowed at, stared through, and licked by more cats than ever in my life. Even so, I was pretty sure the one I wanted.
A few days later, they brought Teemo over. He was four months old at the time, a skinny grey Tabby who’d been Lucky Shelter’s resident TikTok star according to the Vietnamese lady running the place—She’d sent me a few videos of him dancing to various Vinahouse tunes. After they left I told him he was safe now, I wasn’t going to subject him to that kind of torture and in the darkness of the night I watched as he went around my house, sniffing at his new surroundings with wonder. It was strange, the overwhelming love I felt knowing he was my responsibility now. As more time passed I would only come to understand what that truly meant. For that first evening though, I wanted nothing more than to hold him in my arms and cherish his innocence—It’s me and you against the world, Teemo. Me and you against the world…
Cam wasn’t as pleased about the sudden introduction of a new cat into the apartment. She’d gotten used to my place, had even taken to waiting for me by the front door when I came home some evenings. Now there was a new cat to contend with, and she reacted with hisses whenever Teemo tried to get close. Wherever he did venture too close for comfort, she’d flick out a slap like a boxer practicing their jab. All the while, Teemo remained unfazed, ever curious and just wanting to get to know this new feline, different from any of the others he’d played with at Lucky Shelter. Unfortunately for him, Cam didn’t want any of it. She regressed into how she was when she first came to mine. Hiding everywhere and hissing like I’d never heard her hiss before. Whenever I left the house I was worried I’d return to a crime scene. Thankfully they were only together for a few days—Aidan came back from his trip and whisked her back home.
So Teemo and I. Me and Teemo. People have an idea of cats being blasé, indifferent, unfriendly—Teemo’s nothing like that. And that isn’t the statement of a proud, overbearing parent telling you how smart their kid is. This is real, the words from everyone who’s ever come round and met him. He’s curious, wanders over with his tail high, starts sniffing, maybe rubs his head against yours—Hello. Having him around the first month was great, seeing him get comfortable, get used to his new home and me. It didn’t take long before he joined me in bed for sleep in the evenings, where he’d occasionally nibble my earlobe as a way to say goodnight. Some mornings he’d still be there, others he’d be downstairs, waiting for me to wake, and as I came down the stairs he’d get up, yawn, stretch before walking over and nuzzling against my shin.
Months passed and at some point, having Teemo around became normal. The novelty fades. This is the way with everything. After a while even the shiniest object loses its lustre when you see it sparkle everyday. More and more we were simply in each other’s company, with our separate routines and behaviours we performed in coexistence. Like how I’d top up his dry food bowl whenever I had my morning coffee, how he’d eat some of it before slumping on the ground for a nap. Or his night-time zoomies while I read on the bed before sleep. These had him bouncing from wall to wall with an unconquerable, occasionally horrific energy. While he knocked one or two things over thanks to the zoomies, through the months, there weren’t too many issues. All I remember is a bout of diarrhea owing to tape worms and Teemo’s sensitive stomach, which meant stains on the floor and a thick, funky smell from the litter box. Getting it sorted took a while, with numerous trips to the vet and a trial-and-error period with various wet and dry foods to see which ones he could stomach. That’s when you realise what it really means to take care of a pet. It’s not all them just looking cute and cuddling. There’s actually work and effort involved.
During my stay in my first apartment in Đa Kao, another significant change took place: I started letting Teemo outside. Now, I know this isn’t recommended. When the good people from Lucky Shelter came to drop him off, they advised me against opening the windows looking onto my neighbourhood courtyard for as long as possible—After all, once cats and dogs are out on Saigon’s streets, there’s really no guaranteeing their safety. Still, after a while of having Teemo, I started to feel sorry for him. For one, I wasn’t going to keep the windows closed forever. For another, Teemo liked to play and run around, which is why it was impossible to consider going from a shelter filled with friends to a house with only me as anything but a downgrade. Lastly, another cat lived in the neighbourhood, a brownish-orange cat belonging to the family next door. Their cat always stayed in the courtyard, never went out the gate and was usually watched by the old lady living across from me. I figured I could at least try—for Teemo’s sake.
Needless to say, Teemo loved being outside. It opened his world. I imagined it was something like giving a blind man vision, to go from the muted interior of my apartment to an outdoors bursting with colours, smells, and sounds. He became an instant hit with my neighbours as he sped up and down the length of the alleyway, but also understanding enough to know not to venture beyond the gate where the sound of motorbike horns turned him away. Teemo and the neighborhood cat, Nâu, became fast friends. Nâu became an older brother figure, playing with Teemo, chasing him around, and rolling around the floor with him in what I can only describe as jiu jitsu. Like father, like son, I suppose. All was going great until two years into living in Saigon, I decided to move.
Moving meant taking Teemo away from Nâu. It meant taking away the colours, smells, and sounds he’d experienced on that first day outside in the courtyard. This was why once I decided to move, I knew I’d only go someplace with a balcony. I found one in Bình Thạnh, a huge, long space he could run through, complete with a balcony I had ideas to turn into something of a jungle. While that meant he could be outside, after we moved in I still couldn’t get rid of the thought of his sadness and boredom at no longer having a friend. After some hesitation, I figured what the hell. Another one.
Luna was the second cat. She came recommended by the folks at Lucky Shelter, who said she was friendly and could pretty much get comfortable anywhere you put her. They weren’t lying. The evening they brought her over she went around sniffing everything, tail high in the air as if she were the Queen of this domain and we were naught but loyal subjects. She hit it off with Teemo immediately, who is to this day somewhat enamoured with her. She’s got a coat of white fur as white as the moon, with grey spots dotted throughout. As of writing this, she’s been with us for six months and while the novelty has faded once more, while some days they’re just there and I don’t give them belly rubs and scratches on their cheeks like they deserve, on other days I’m reminded of that feeling I had when I first held Teemo back in my old apartment. The love, the protection. It’s then I’m reminded of Patch, and to never take this for granted. While they might only be here for part of my life, to them I’m all of it.
