Bright orange fur and strong opinions
The tiger-striped kitten had a luxurious mane of bright orange fur. He seemed to hold strong opinions about the state of the world that he enjoyed vocalizing. Alice Rohart decided to name him “Donald” — but not for the reasons you’re imagining.
“Some people think I named my cat after Donald Trump,” she says. “But I gave him that name 14 years ago. He was really named in honor of a relative who loved cats.”
Rohart and her late husband adopted Donald, then 6 weeks old, in 2002 from a veterinarian in Towson who found new homes for animals in need.
“Donald walked out of that crate and jumped right into my husband’s lap,” she said. At the time, Rohart’s husband had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“My husband really perked up when the cat was around,” she says. “It was like therapy for him. It was a wonderful thing to see.”
She soon discovered that Donald had a mind of his own. There was the time she and her husband brought Donald along on a car trip to Canada. After spending the night in a hotel, Alice Rohart put Donald in his carrier, opened a window just a crack, and went inside to settle the bill.
After returning to the car, the couple
Pet people
drove for hours. They had passed through customs in Canada before Alice Rohart discovered the carrier was empty.
“We turned right around, went through customs again and drove back to the hotel,” she says.
“We were just asking the clerk if anyone had seen our cat when Donald came out from under the bushes. Goodness, that was a bad scare.” baltimoresun.com/unleashed. baltimoresunstore.com