Rockwall County — I realized recently that the Hardins are practically petless.

Practically petless? How could that be?

We have a granddog. Sasha belongs to daughter Amy and her family. We get the opportunity to dogsit occasionally.

But we don’t have a pet we can call our very own.

Even the last pet in our life — a cat — wasn’t our own. She was a neighborhood cat.

This cat welcomed us to our new home on Marigold Lane in Longview. She showed up on our first day there. She and our family bonded quickly, but we were concerned. Surely, she belonged to someone in the neighborhood. We checked around. Nope. She was just a neighborhood cat. Actually, several families owned her because they fed her.

I believe the different families had different names for her, also. As a family, we had several. Grandson Noah named her Miskie. Wife Becky called her Gracie. And Jim — that’s me — being the creative person of the family, named her Kitty-Kitty.

For this column, I will refer to her as Kitty-Kitty. But you will see Gracie come into play later.

Anyway, Kitty-Kitty was a good cat. She would visit several times daily. We would give and receive affection — we would rub, pat and scratch her head and she would purr.

She wasn’t a needy cat. She would take a few minutes of this affection, then she’s up and ready to go someplace else.

She began to stay in our home for longer periods of time. We even let her spend the night, especially during bad weather. Of course, that meant we had to get a litter box.

Kitty-Kitty used the litter box a few times and, of course, kicked gravel all over the laundryroom floor. Becky didn’t like that at all, so out went the litter box. Instead of gravel, we expected to be cleaning up other stuff in the house. We decided to keep a close eye on her while she was inside, then let her out often for the opportunity to do her business.

This may sound unbelievable, but in the almost two years that Kitty-Kitty was in our lives — and our house — not once did she deposit anything onto our floors that should have been left in the litter box. If she needed to go outside, she would go to the back door, meow to get our attention and do her little Kitty-Kitty dance to let us know she was anxious for us to open the door.

She did bring us gifts, however, but never inside the house. The gifts? Rats and squirrels. She was so proud.

As we were making plans to move from Longview to Royse City in September 2008, our biggest decision involved Kitty-Kitty. We had become attached to her and, well, she liked us, too. But we just didn’t feel like we were supposed to take her from the only home she’s ever known — the neighborhood home setting — and turn her loose in the wiles of a new subdivision.

We talked to across-the-street neighbors Ollie, Terry and Cathy about our plans. Of course, they promised, they would take care of her. I believe they even agreed that we were making the right decision — for us and for Kitty-Kitty.

When we closed on the sale of our Longview house, we told the new owners that a sweet cat probably would be coming by to visit. They didn’t make any commitments about taking care of Kitty-Kitty, but the visits appeared to be OK with them.

We haven’t contacted Ollie, Terry or Cathy to check on Kitty-Kitty’s welfare. Bad parents!

We found out recently, however, that Kitty-Kitty is alive and well. Grandson Noah was visiting in Longview about two weeks ago and saw our former neighbors Terry, Cathy and their daughter Sutton. Yes, the Cranks are the new “parents” for Gracie. Not Kitty-Kitty, but Gracie.

Gracie apparently didn’t have such a graceful relationship with the family that bought our house. It sounds like the relationship went sour when the sweet little kitty cat brought them a gift — a live rat — and turned it loose inside the house.

There’s a happy ending to this story. The Cranks have a good cat. Gracie has a good family. And Becky and I have a good feeling that everybody appears to be happy.