Sirius Sightings and the Cats of Kotor

Before arriving in Kotor, we were well acquainted with the term “Cats of Kotor”.  When the girls were devastated to leave all their kitty cat friends in Morocco, we were able to soothe them slightly with the promise that Kotor was famous for all the cats they had.  And wow, do they ever have a lot of cats!  However, unlike Morocco, these cats all look extremely healthy and well cared for.  And that’s because they are!

There is a lovely lady who owns a souvenir shop called Danijela’s Shop, full of beautiful handmade treasures by her and her family that they sell.  They use their profits to take care of the cats.  They feed, water, care for, and sterilize all the local cats.  The cats are all so friendly and we had no problems letting the girls cuddle and play with them all.  The lady told us that no matter if they sterilize all the cats to keep the cat population in check, there will always be more cats. 

Because of its reputation, many people drop off cats and litters of kittens in Kotor, where they know they will be cared for.  And they are.  In addition to caring for them, the lady also tries to find homes for as many of the cats as she can.  She is an absolutely lovely woman!  We adored her and made sure to visit her shop several times to chat, buy our magnet souvenir (we buy a magnet in every country we go to, our 15-year strong tradition!), and on our last day donate money towards the cats.  She has a partner in crime who helps her to care for the cats, but we never met her. 

Our girls were in HEAVEN with all the cats everywhere!  We became regulars at the vet’s office, going in there several times to buy 2-3 kg of cat food.  The girls always took a big bag of cat food everywhere we went, and made sure to feed every single stray we passed every time.  They named all the cats, and god help Jon and me if we forgot or mixed up the cats’ names! 

These two are such total and complete animal lovers.  It melts my heart to see!  And of course, they did have their favourites, but they always made sure to treat all cats the same when it came to doling out the food.  Well, mostly.  If they encountered an injured cat (we found the occasional limping kitty), they made sure to feed it extra so it could rest and heal, rather than needing to fend for itself more and aggravating the injury.  They are extremely thoughtful in that way!

One of their two favourite areas to be with the cats was at Platanus Café, where there were dozens of kitties.  It was perfect because it was mine and Jon’s favourite café on the Boardwalk.  We could sit and have a coffee and chat while they spent a solid hour with the cats feeding them and petting them or at the playgrounds playing. 

Their second favourite area was in the cat park, as we called it.  It was in Kotor’s old town where most of the cats congregated as this is where the cat lady keeps tons of food, water, and shelter for them all the time.  We would sometimes sit here for 1-2 hours while the girls fed the cats.  I tried to count them all one time and lost track at 21.  I’d estimate there were about 30 of them here!

It wasn’t even just Kotor we found the cats.  We found quite a few in Perast, up on our hiking adventures in the mountains (these ones were not quite so cute and cuddly, though!), along the road when we were walking along the Bay, etc.

While Kotor is known for its cats, we also found another local celebrity.  A gorgeous and very-happy black dog, which the girls named Sirius Black.  And honest to god, he looked so much like Sirius’ dog form from the Harry Potter movies!  It was an apt name!

Sirius was quite the fixture around town.  All the locals seemed to know him.  And every single person greeted him with happiness and love.  He’s a hard dog not to love!  He’s so happy and friendly, except to cats!  And very bright.  I think he’s some kind of border collie cross.  But I’m not a dog expert!

It did not take long the first time we met him for the girls to befriend this amazing creature.  They played with him for hours at a time!  Their favourite game was to throw sticks for him, which he loved to jump into the air to catch at the park or swim out into the water to retrieve at the beach.

His home base seemed to be a big, shaded playground right on the water in Kotor.  But he also seemed to love the boardwalk and the beach area.  Whenever we were out and about, we would inevitably find him.  Or he would find us.  Every time we saw him somewhere, we called it a Sirius Sighting. 

Whenever we found each other, he would follow us.  He would follow us around town, along the boardwalk, sit under our table while we were at cafes, follow us to our apartment (where it broke our heart to have to close the door on him and leave him outside the building!), and partway along a hike to some waterfalls. 

One time on our walk home we needed to go into the grocery store.  Katia had been training him diligently in the art of “Stay”, “Come”, and “Stop”, and he learned every command quickly!  When we went into the store, the doors were wide open and he tried to follow us.  Katia gave him the commands “Stop” and “Stay”.  And impressively, that’s exactly what he did!  We came back out of the grocery store 15 minutes later and he was still sitting there, waiting for us patiently, and continued to follow us home!  The look of utter joy he had when we came back out melted our hearts!

Needless to say, most locals knew exactly who he was and that he was a stray.  But many people in and around Kotor assumed him to be our dog!  And we really and truly wanted him to be our dog, too.  Whether we adopt a family dog or not when we return to Canada from this year abroad has been a topic of debate for the last couple of years.  We go back and forth on the idea.  But we all fell so head over heels in love with this dog that it prompted us to look up if it would be possible to bring a dog from Montenegro into Canada as our family pet.  Long story short, it seems quite easy to do so.  But at the end of the day, we couldn’t take this sweet dog away from a community that loves him, an environment he adores (especially swimming in the Bay!), or the free and joyful life he lives.  But we will always remember this sweet dog who was an utter joy to be around for two weeks.  If we do decide to adopt a family dog when we return to Canada, it will be quite a challenge to find a dog we love as much as Siri-boy.