Merci à Emily Procter FanSite

CSI: Miami’s Bullet Girl Is Just Wild About Her Favorite Guy–A Cat Named Kevin ~ The Pet Press


“I’m not a gun lover,” says Emily. “I’m just not, so it was a very challenging part for me to play. Guns are something that I never thought I would learn about. But now that I know about them I’m glad that I do. Because they are out there and I think it’s important to have some idea of gun safety even though we all hope to never come in contact with one.”

When watching Emily in her role on CSI” Miami, one can’t help but marvel at the enthusiasm she exhibits when she is able to apply her forensic knowledge to bullet fragments. And while that is acting, she displays that same kind of delight and joy when discussing the animals that share her real life.

Emily Procter’s love for animals was inherited from her Mother, who passed that love on to the entire family. “She currently has and has always had tons of animals. And she’s wonderful with them.... She can get them to do anything."
And so, as a youngster “we grew up having horses and having access to a farm. I had a Burma calf named Gilbert and a lamb named Tinkerbell,” says Emily. “I had a turtle named Brian, who, knock wood, is still around. He was real tiny, about the size of a 50-cent piece when I got him. I’d say he’s about 35 years old. He’s a snapping turtle. And then, of course, I had two cats and a dog.”

But ever since Emily has been living in Los Angeles, she’s only had the same one animal – a cat named Kevin.

“Kevin is the love of my life. He is my ‘familiar.’ (If you’re like me and never heard that expression before, Emily explains that “the familiar is kind of like that special pet… THE one.”)

“Kevin is 15 years old, and I think he’s a Main Coon,” Emily continues. “He’s huge – 19 pounds, very tall and wide. He has lots of fur that comes out
from underneath his paws. He’s gray and white with a heart-shaped mole on one side of his face and a sailboat nose, because his nose looks like the sail of a ship.”

When Emily first moved to LA, an animal-loving friend of hers lived next to an empty lot that has been filled with feral cats. “she did her best to get all of them spayed and neutered, but one slipped through the cracks, literally, and had babies in a hole in her wall. So she had some people come to get hem out, because she was worried that they would be stuck in there. There were Three cats and Kevin was one of them. We bottle fed the kittens and helped teach them to go to the bathroom. And I read all of these books about how you bond with an animal if you are its mother.
Eventually we put an ad in the paper, but by then I had fallen in love with Kevin. He had already become the love of my life. I didn’t really want an animal yet because I had just moved here… but to everyone who came to ask about Kevin I was like, ‘no, no.’ My friend finally said, ‘I think you should admit the fact that you really like Kevin and you want him for yourself.’ So eventually I took him home.”
“Kevin is just a special animal,” explains Emily. “You know how every now and then there’s one that will just click with you? That’s Kevin for me. We communicate very well with each other. He is just a friendly snuggly cat. And he loves to spoon. That’s how we sleep. Kevin does a proper spoon. I sleep on my side and he just comes and lays out, length-wise, in front of me. It’s so nice. And I’ll tell you what he does that is the sweetest – if he’s cold, he gets under the covers. I love him so much. But the sweetest thing that he does is that he pets my face… with his paw. And he kisses me, too. Sometimes he will just look at me, and with the sweetest expression on his face, he sort of pets my whole face the way that I pet his. He’ll pet in between my eyes and he’ll pet on either side….
(We are then interrupted with Emily saying “ah, here he comes. You know I’m talking about you.”)Kevin is not declawed, but Emily says he tucks his nails in when he pets her face.
(I wish my cats could do that, instead of leaving me with scratches when they pet my face!)

Emily is into interior decorating and collecting antiques, but that doesn’t present a problem for Kevin, who, as stated earlier, is very big and furry. “He’s a very funny cat,” continues Emily. “He’s very fastidious. He jumps up on very specific
things only, and that’s usually for napping. He like to be on the floor. He doesn’t really like to jump up. And if he wants to be up high he usually wants you to hold him. I always joke that I don’t think that he knows he’s a cat. And when he meets people he wants to be on the ground, and then he puts his nose up for you to come down and greet him.”

Kevin does have one annoying habit – “he is the ruiner of all things curtains. He gets a treat at night, but sometimes he wants a treat in the morning. And when he does, he will knock the treats over. If he doesn’t get one then, he will walk over to the curtain and just hook his claw in the curtain and stare at me as if to say ‘I will pull it."
The big joke is that Kevin is quite a source of jealousy when it comes to Emily having boyfriends, although she does have a long-term boyfriend now. “But Kevin is my main dude. I have had more then one boyfriend say, ‘I wish you loved me as much as you love Kevin.’”
“I have to say it’s pretty hard not to fall in love with Kevin. I have been very lucky because my current boyfriend and Kevin have what is very clearly ‘dude time.’ I like to say them ‘muggle,’ – it’s the man’s snuggle. It’s very different. It’s more masculine than with me. But he knows that Kevin and I do the spoon, and that’s kind of how it goes.”

There was a time when Emily also had a dog name Pete who lives with Henry, her previous boyfriend of many years, in Memphis. “We adopted Pete together from a shelter in Memphis,she explains. “He was the only dog I could see through the shelter window. I told Henry that I couldn’t go in, because if I did we’d be leaving with more then one animal. So he went in and brought Pete out. He is so sweet. He’s got kind of a Japanese tail with some German Shepherd and Spitz mixed in. He is a good guy who’s a real love. Almost ten years old now, Pete has lots of room where he’s been living with my ex. As the time, that was best for Pete. Of course now that I have a big yard, I wish Pete was with me. I flirt with the idea all the time of getting another animals, but Kevin is Kevin. He is his own person (cat.) Everyone jokes about it, but he’s a demanding fellow.”

The past October Emily was invited to be the celebrity judge for the Purina Pro Plan Rally To Rescue, a contest that looked for the most amazing rescue story of the last year. “Obviously some of the rescues were tragic stories… but it was judged on who made the best recovery. A lot of these animals are out there doing public service now.... It was just a really neat day with the tem animals finalists coming there in person. The winner was Rummy, a blind Siberian Husky.”

“I’m in awe of the unwavering spirit of these animals,” Emily said at the time, “and I’m honored to help share their incredible stories. As the parent of a rescued cat with his own extraordinary story, I really want these pets and the amazing people who rescued them to get the recognition they so truly deserve.”

Emily Procter’s Southern charm and hospitality doesn’t just lend itself to animals. She also spends a lot of time helping the homeless. Humans, that is. But it makes perfect sense to see how that also applies to animals. “I’m very concerned about the treatment of animals and making sure that there are not a lot of unwanted, uncared for animals running around out there in the world. I
think spaying and neutering is very important. And we should all do our best to try to shut down puppy mills. The are just horrible!”


So what has Kevin added to her life?

“It’s what everyone says…. His unconditional love. I just love the relationship I have with Kevin,” says Emily. “I worry about people because they’ll say they’re lonely. And I’ll tell them that there are wonderful pets out there just waiting for a home. They are such wonderful company.”