Blog post

The Many Pets of PSPDFKit

William Barbosa William Barbosa
Illustration: The Many Pets of PSPDFKit

Remote work can sometimes get lonely, so in this blog post, we decided to give a shoutout to all the helpers (big and small) that keep us company and make our lives better: our pets! I sent out a CFP (Call for Pets) and everyone got together to show their friends to the world. I was surprised both by the amount of pets and, as you’ll see, by how diverse a cast of pets we have in the company.

So without further ado, in everyone’s own words, here they are!

Amira, Nimbus, Pixel, Bestest Ratty Friends, Simba, Cujo, and Twinkles (Patrik, Developer from the US)

Patrik didn’t write a small summary about his pets, but we can summarize it in this exchange:

Slack conversation

Also, the names of his rats are Cupcake, Bebop, Luna, Dumpling, Pickles, Waffles, and Cinder, but we chose to refer to them by their collective name.
orange tabby black long-hair cat grey medium-hair cat
white medium-hair cat shaved terrier with long hair on perked up ears group of rats in a hammock
grey cat with white chest and markings white and grey cat

Apollo and Athena (Gabriel, Developer from Brazil)

I adopted Apollo and Athena (also known as “white cat” and “gray cat”) almost a year ago. They’re brothers, and Athena was supposed to be a she, but during their first time at the vet, we discovered I was bamboozled. The name stuck. They do pretty much everything together, including destroying what’s left of my apartment’s furniture. In the mornings, they’re usually part of my meeting setup and can be seen as part of the background — or even the foreground.
two cats nuzzling in a window cat peeking over a table's edge dark cat cleaning itself on a pillow
two cats curled up together sleeping cat lounging in sunlight along a baseboard white cat looking up at television screen
cat lying in a window sill two cats looking at camera cat lying back in a bathroom sink

Bella, Stella, and Sophie (Richard, Director of Sales from the US)

Here’s our crew at home. Bella 11 (brown), Stella 9 (black) and Sophie 6 (yellow). Bella and Stella (no relation) belonged to me and my wife, respectively, before we met. Now they’ve been together as long as we have.

Sophie and Stella are actually half sisters. My aunt breeds labs, and unfortunately, someone had abused Sophie when she was a puppy, so we rescued her and added her to the pack.

Disclaimer: Being outnumbered by dogs is something you should be wary about. 🙂 They go where we go though.
<img width=“1604” src=”/assets/images/blog/2022/pspdfkittens-the-pets-of-pspdfkit/bella_stella_sophie_1.jpg”alt=“white dog holding a tree branch in its mouth”> <img width=“1604” src=”/assets/images/blog/2022/pspdfkittens-the-pets-of-pspdfkit/bella_stella_sophie_2.jpg”alt=“brown dog standing in a field”> <img width=“1604” src=”/assets/images/blog/2022/pspdfkittens-the-pets-of-pspdfkit/bella_stella_sophie_3.jpg”alt=“black dog panting next to a stone wall”>
<img width=“1604” src=”/assets/images/blog/2022/pspdfkittens-the-pets-of-pspdfkit/bella_stella_sophie_4.jpg”alt=“black and tan dogs laying together on floor”> <img width=“1604” src=”/assets/images/blog/2022/pspdfkittens-the-pets-of-pspdfkit/bella_stella_sophie_5.jpg”alt=“three dogs panting with heads hanging out of a car’s hatchback”>

Buggu (Akshat, Developer from India)

Meet Buggu! She’s a Golden Retriever adopted by my close friends; they also live quite close to us, so we’re her godparents. 😄
white puppy looking upward white puppy eating out of a small cup light-colored dog resting on large cushion
light-colored dog lying across blanket white puppy playing beside a swimming pool white puppy panting and looking back up at camera

Debra and Elettra (Simone, Developer from Italy)

Debra is my faithful stubborn dog who sleeps in strange positions. She loves me and is always close to me; wherever I go, she goes, and she never abandons me. 😀

Elettra is my beautiful favorite scarf. She likes to escape from her terrarium, and when on my shoulders, she likes to stare at the world.
person's hand holding the head of a large snake' man with large snake draped around shoulders large snake holding head upside down
large snake looking directly into camera long-haired dog panting while laying down long-haired dog in car
long-haired dog resting on purple blanket long-haired dog lying back across couch long-haired dog laying along back of couch with head hanging over cushion

Eve (Amit, Developer from the UK)

This is Eve, the neighbor’s cat, who decided to explore our garden two years ago, and has since then gradually become more comfortable with us. Eventually she trusted us enough to visit my office. She’s especially fond of messing with the paper in the paper tray and looking at the birds from the window. I’m grateful for her company over the lockdowns. (The neighbors are OK with this, by the way.)
black cat creeping along ground black cat seated on laptop keyboard black cat seated on desk looking out window
black cat seated on office in-tray black cat stalking outdoors

Maurice and Lili (Rad, Developer from Canada)

Here are a couple of photos of Maurice and a photo of Lili (my mom’s cat).
orange cat with pink blanket draped across its back orange cat looking into camera brown tabby cat sleeping on black couch

Plumita (Guillermo, Developer from Paraguay)

My cat is called Plumita, which means “little feather” in Spanish. I adopted her in May of this year when she was two months old. Her favorite activities are dropping stuff and acting surprised about it (as can be seen in the first picture), helping me while I study, and sleeping on the couch that she likes to scratch the most. She likes constant attention and purring a lot! She also loves to crash my Zoom meetings.
brown tabby cat playing on balcony brown tabby cat enjoying being pet brown tabby laying on laptop sleeve
brown tabby lying along back of sofa brown tabby kitten sitting upright next to office papers

Rhodes (Steve, QA Engineer from the US)

My cat is named Rhodes. He convinced me in September of 2014 that I should adopt him….still working on how he pulled that one off. To describe him, all I have to tell you is his secret name: Crazy Cat. He’s all about playing, and you’ll never see him walking with his tail down. When Crazy Cat comes to visit, his tail usually turns into a shepherd’s hook and he raises up on his back legs.
orange tabby sitting up next to laptop work area orange tabby sitting on edge of table orange tabby camera closeup

Spaghetti and Rigatone (Will, Developer from Italy)

Yes, my cats are named after pasta. After a long discussion with my wife about naming them after satellites (Sputnik is such a dope cat name), we settled for something that we both like and that she’ll actually remember. 🤌 They were adopted in Brazil and came to Italy with us. I still remember when we were in customs and everyone was trying to pet them. I also remember how hard it was to get a stressed cat to be quiet to pass through the metal detector. Fun times!

Spaghetti is the chaotic one and Rigatone is the chill one. They complement each other quite nicely!
white and grey cat sitting in delivery box with head resting on flap white cat with dark markings sleeping next to switch controller

Temida (Arek, Developer from Poland)

My cat Temida (although we call her Kitka, which is just a cute name for a female cat in Polish) has been with us for a little over a year. She’s blind and she doesn’t have any teeth, but that doesn’t stop her from grazing, biting our toes when she’s hungry, or devouring carton boxes. Her favorite activity is sunbathing on a balcony. She’s great for remote work, because she forces me to take breaks to feed her or give her medicine.
rust brown cat lying on blue pillow rust brown cat eating tuft of grass rust brown cat lying on pillow
rust brown cat cleaning itself rust brown cat sitting alert at edge of bed rust brown cat curled up on patterned pillow

Tetris and Pica (Natalye, Editor from Germany)

I have two cats: Tetris Nightcrawler Caruso (orange) and Picasaurus Huggybear Nook (black). I got them both in January 2006 when they were kittens, and they’ve grown old with me — even making the trip across the Atlantic when I moved to Germany 10 years ago. They’re both 16. Since they’re now lazy old men, they spend their days sleeping, eating, complaining that there’s not enough to eat, sunbathing, finding obscure spots to sleep/hide, awkwardly positioning themselves in the most inconvenient and uncomfortable places possible in an effort to be as physically close to the household’s humans as is allowed, and shedding fur everywhere. When I’m working, they like to curl up together on the armchair in my office and snooze, or gaze out the window and chatter at the birds that land on the balcony. I even have a tattoo of them (along with their other two cat siblings, who passed away).
black and orange cats resting side by side black and orange cats nuzzling heads together black and orange cats sleeping on top of each other
orange cat in mid meow black cat in mid meow black cat resting paws on back of orange cat

Titan (Petra, Designer from Slovenia)

This is Titan. His full name is Titan Cesars Forest, 🌳 which perfectly explains his character. He recently celebrated his 13th birthday but decided not to share his peanut butter pumpkin cake with anyone. His favorite food is everything, but he gets the biggest saliva waterfalls after smelling mandarines. 💦

He participates in a lot of our Zoom meetings but he’s caught napping through most of them. 💤

I think he deserves some bonus points for currently fighting lymphoma! 💪 And it really means the world to me that I’m able to be at home with him and take care of him.

(It’s impossible for me to select photos. 99% of my photo library is dog photos 😅). I’m also attaching a puppy photo. 😍
white puppy with brown markings looking up at camera white and brown dog seated on blanket white and brown dog loping on field with mountain in background
white and brown puppy panting toward camera white and brown dog howling upward white and brown dog wading in water
white and brown puppy chewing on bone

Conclusion

So there you have it: the cats (and dogs, and rats, and snakes) of PSPDFKit.

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