For ten thousand years, cats have lived alongside humans, catching unwanted rats and providing comforting purrs. Senior Jenny Sogin’s two cats, Bandit and Oreo, have unique aspects of their personalities that make her treasure them even more.

Sogin has had Bandit, affectionately pronounced “Bondeet,” for nine or ten years ever since her family adopted him from the Humane Society.

“Bandit is really fat, and he has diabetes, but he’s losing weight. We’re getting him there,” Sogin said.

Oreo, on the other hand, is a spritely young cat at one year old, named for the white stripe that goes from his nose to his belly. He’s been a part of Sogin’s family for three weeks.

“Oreo sleeps with me every night right by my head. He has weirdly long limbs. He’s regular-sized for a cat, but he has a super long tail and huge feet. When he runs, he has to deal with these huge limbs. It’s really funny,” she said.

Like all cats, he has special — if slightly strange — quirks.

“Oreo follows me around the house, and after I’ve taken a shower, once I open up the door, he goes in and sits in the wet shower and scouts around,” Sogin said. “But he doesn’t do it when it’s not wet.”

Despite Bandit’s initial misgivings, he has bonded with Oreo in a heartwarming way.

“At first they didn’t really like each other, but now it’s a big brother, little brother type of thing,” Sogin said. “Oreo attacks him when he’s most vulnerable, and Bandit has no time for that, but they also just sit by each other, and that’s really cute.”

This is a stark contrast with her former cat, Yiddle, who passed away recently. According to Sogin, she was horrible to Bandit and stirred resentment between the two cats. However, some of her behavior can be explained by the fact that she had a rough start to life.

Sogin has family members that live in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, her aunt came back to their house to check the damage and heard Yiddle mewing.

“She was covered in oil and living in the wheel of a car, she was really small and either lost or abandoned because she was the runt of the litter, and she had cataracts,” Sogin said.

Her aunt took her in, but due to the pet limit in New Orleans, she had to give her away. Eventually, Sogin’s family adopted Yiddle and brought her back to Minnesota.

Sogin wants to encourage people to adopt from shelters instead of straight from farms.

“There are animals in shelters who are old and unwanted. Those are the cats and dogs to get,” she said. “I think it’s important that we adopt from there because those animals have not been shown love, and by adopting them, you’re really taking them in.”