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All our animals, Stinky and Baby the cats and Fender the dog, are rescues, but our kitties came directly to us from life-saving events.

Stinky's 'sauvetage' began when a friend heard mewing from a garbage can in a Chicago alley. He lifted the lid, saw a kitten, picked him out of the trash and exclaimed, "You're stinky!"

He put the guy down on the ground intending to continue on his way, but like lots of kitties in need of rescue, it followed him. When we in turn took him in, our friend just asked that we keep his name - Stinky.

Baby was found on a country road 200 miles from Chicago, by the wife of an executive where I work. She was following a hawk she'd spotted, to take photos. The hawk began to circle over her head and there on the road under the hawk's watchful gaze was a tiny kitten, nearly dead from loss of blood due to fleas.

When she posted a sign for an adopter where I work, it pulled at my heart strings right away. The lovely lady rescuer had been calling the little girl Baby, because she thought it would be an easy name to transition from, but it fit, so it stuck (though Princess Baby is her most fitting moniker).

Stinky is now 12 and Baby 8. They are the best cats in the world. Sorry to all of the rest of you, but it's true.

Our buddy Fender joined us two years ago, a more conventional rescue from a shelter. Though we'd gone to see a completely different puppy, after five minutes, it was clear he was the one.

Everyone gets along very well, as long as Fender remembers that Stinky is the king, Baby the queen and he is 'just' the prince - a delineation he's worked hard to respect.