By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Rosanna Toth walked into the house and immediately started wooing Ginger.

“Hey, kitty cat. Here, little girl,” she cooed.

Toth peeked around corners. She made kissy noises.

Finally, Ginger appeared from the dining room, tail swishing in agitation. She looked annoyed.

Until she recognized the human in front of her.

After six years as a professional cat sitter, Toth knows a few tricks for winning over reluctant residents.

“She and I have been spending a lot of time with catnip and ribbons,” Toth said, stroking the cat.

Ginger purred.

Toth, 49, grew up on a farm in south New Jersey. She was surrounded by animals, but always gravitated toward cats, toward their serenity and their quiet independence.

“I used to make jokes to people about wanting to pat cats for a living,” she said.

Six-and-a-half years ago, Toth met a cat sitter. Turned out someone really could pat cats for a living.

She soon started Rosanna’s Kitty Sitting in Lewiston.

Although cats are independent, they can’t call the vet when they’re sick or refill a spilled water bowl. So for $12 and up per visit, Toth would keep tabs on them, doling out food and water, giving medications and offering play time and catnip. Lewiston Veterinary Hospital, where she once worked as an assistant, gave her her first referral.

“I was like My first clients!'” she said. “Then I’d go two months (without clients).”

Gradually, her reputation grew. People booked her during school vacations and holidays, for long weekends and overnight trips. This summer, she doesn’t have a day off until August.

Toth usually has two to five home visits a day, though she once had 10. She sees her kitty clients between caring for her own nine cats and working a part-time job at Axis Natural Foods in Auburn.

Unlike dog sitters, whose furry clients typically bound out with enthusiasm, Toth often has to go searching for her charges when she arrives at a house.

“I do a lot of crawling around on my hands and knees looking for kitties under beds,” she said.

The job isn’t easy. Toth has gotten her share of scratches. She’s cleaned up toilet paper-turned-cat-toy and has given diabetic felines their daily insulin shots.

But she’s also gets to pat cats for a living.

“I wouldn’t do anything else,” she said.