Xander, along with his twin brother and three sisters, was born on a rainy night in my coworker's backyard. Actually, she was more than a coworker. I was a technical support advisor, and she was assigned to grade my calls.

When meeting her for a coaching session one day, I noticed that she had a sign in her cubicle advertising free kittens. I had recently become interested in cat ownership, so I asked about them. Apparently, a stray cat gave birth in her backyard, and since she already had six indoor cats, she couldn’t keep them all. So we set up a date and time for me to come by her house to meet them.

After spending time with the kittens, I had my eye set on one of the two black kittens. He was one of the kittens that warmed up to me, and he was delightfully quirky. They called him Legs, I think because he had long legs or liked to move them around a lot. When I say he was quirky, he had an unusual way of chasing a laser pointer that involved moving his legs around a lot.

I was originally hoping to adopt him about a month later, but he got a fungal infection on his nose, so we waited another month for it to go away. Once it was time to bring him home, my first order of business was to change his name since I hated the name Legs. So his first name is Xander and his middle name is Quinn, after two of my favorite fictional characters.

After two days of successful litter box training, Xander was allowed to roam around the rest of the apartment supervised. And even though I set up a bed for him, he insisted on sleeping in my bed with me, which he still usually does. He’s very clingy, and though it can be annoying at times, it’s also quite sweet.

Xander was ten months old when I got him, so I figured he wouldn’t get much bigger, but after a few months, it hit me: my cat was big. Not as big as a Maine Coon, but noticeably larger than your typical house cat. Since he was basically a stray cat that got lucky, I had no way of knowing his genetic background. Or so I thought.

I found this company online called Basepaws, who does genetic tests similar to those from AncestryDNA and 23andMe, but for cats. They were actually featured on Shark Tank in their early days in 2019 under the name 23andmeow. Though the test still has some kinks to iron out, just like AncestryDNA and 23andMe, I have seen multiple updates since submitting Xander’s DNA sample with more and more information about his background. If you're curious, click the button below to view his report.

Xander's DNA Report
Xander has been my best friend for almost six years, and I want to keep him around for as long as I can, especially after some health scares he had earlier this year. So I figure that the more I learn about him and cats in general, the better chance I have of making that a reality. This is just one of many helpful resources that I’ve found.

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If you would like to learn more about your own cat, you can use my referral link for $20 off a Basepaws DNA test. I am not formally affiliated with Basepaws. Just a cat lover.