Kipling Moonshadow

I have the loveliest childhood memories of my father reading bedtime stories to me and my favourite was Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (I loved Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows too and always wanted to name my house Toad Hall).  Being a cat person for as long as I can remember, Bagheera was of course the character I cherished the most and wondered why we all couldn’t have large, black panthers as our loyal and wise guardians.  So you can well imagine that the moment I saw Bagheera, the all black kitten available for adoption on Chrystal’s blog, I was a goner!

The name Bagheera however does not exactly flow off the tongue and the other day when Robert called him Bags, I was convinced we had to change his name.  I immediately thought of Kipling, as an homage to the author who penned Bagheera and the fact that the name shortens nicely to Kip sold me on the idea.

Kipling also wrote The Cat Who Walked by Himself, a story about how animals became domesticated while the cat’s true heart remained untamed!  I have always believed that when a cat or kitten comes to live in our houses they bring a little wildness into our lives.

As for Bagheera's second name, it was very difficult to see our all black kitty during the drive home to Canada from Ohio which was at nighttime.   Out of his carrier and moving around against the dark interior of our car, he was only a little slip of a moonshadow....

Therefore felines of all ages, I would like to present Kipling Moonshadow: aka Kip :-)

Hi there