In 2011, a group of 20 cats came to the ASPCA from our local city shelter, Animal Care & Control of NYC (AC&C). Within three months, 19 of those cats had been adopted—but one kitty named Basha was struggling to find a home. A black-and-white, 1.5-year-old “teenager,” Basha was feisty and had a tendency to snap without provocation. We thought she would find a home soon enough, but nearly four years in our care proved that wasn’t the case. Though it was a long road, Basha finally found her forever home with an ASPCA staffer named Kelelyn. This is her very well-deserved Happy Tail.

During Basha’s first six months at the ASPCA Adoption Center, we learned a lot about her. A rambunctious little girl prone to overstimulation, she had never learned to play nicely. She seemed to think that hands were toys meant to be chewed, and she was far too spirited to be contained in a cage. Sensing her need for space, we enrolled Basha in the ASPCA office foster program and moved her into the office of one of our team members. That’s when she first met Kelelyn, who worked nearby in the ASPCA’s Marketing & Licensing division.

“Basha was a highly reactive kitty, full of mischief and spunk,” Kelelyn recalls. “Unfortunately, she was also a very rough player.” Basha’s playful—and sometimes painful—sneak attacks were often mistaken for aggression, and understandably not well received by most people. But over the next two years, Kelelyn got to know the feisty feline on a more personal level. “She was always up to comical antics that made me laugh, and sometimes she would curl up in my lap and just purr,” she says. She realized that Basha had a good heart and was just, as she puts it, “deeply misunderstood.”

As Basha was continually passed over for adoption, Kelelyn could tell that the kitty was becoming increasingly frustrated. “Basha wanted to run, wrestle and release all that extra energy!” she says. Though Kelelyn already had two senior special-needs kitties, she decided that she wanted to bring Basha home.

Kelelyn admits that she had concerns about Basha clashing with her other cats, but as it turned out, boisterous Basha is actually quite shy! “I was prepared for a rough transition period, but my worries were unfounded,” she says. Standoffish at first, Basha soon warmed up to her new feline companions. She even befriended Kelelyn’s older cat, Rocky, who allowed her to play with his tail.

Sadly, Rocky passed away a month after Basha’s arrival. “It was a devastating loss for me,” says Kelelyn, “and I was grateful to Basha for helping me feel a little better.” Though Kelelyn didn’t plan on adopting another cat any time soon, a stray kitten soon showed up on her doorstep and joined the family as well. She named him Rupert.

“Basha was a little afraid of Rupert at first (he weighed four pounds at the time), but now she and Roo are totally best friends and playmates,” Kelelyn says. “They wrestle and chase each other, share toys, and never hiss or have real fights.” Rupert doesn’t even mind Basha’s rough playing—in fact, he plays rough right back.

We couldn’t imagine a more fairytale ending for Basha. Though it took four years, she found the perfect adopter in Kelelyn—and the perfect playmate in Rupert. Congratulations to this happy new family!