Now that we've cleared that up I thought I'd mention the furry four legged creature we brought home from church with us and are contemplating keeping. He's a friendly orange tabby cat who is great with people (even the kids!), seems to be at peace with our dog, but doesn't get along at all with our resident cat Boo. Boo always takes additions to our family the hardest, after all she was here first! She rolled her cat eyes at us when we brought home Zoe as a puppy back in fall of 2003 and eventually forgave us after we left her home for a weekend trip and took the dog with us. Don't ever believe that a cat doesn't care when you leave because Boo most definitely does.
In summer of 2005 we brought home Grace from the hospital and she once again thought we were nuts and refused to sleep in the bedroom with us for a month or two before again forgiving us and moving on. Adding Ethan to the mix in 2007 was a breeze, she barely flinched.
Other cats are a whole other story. We tried to adopt another cat from an animal shelter back in 2003 and that plan failed big time. The cat had to go back in order to keep Boo from eating it alive. In 2004 we temporarily housed a lost cat for a few hours while waiting to hear back from the owners (she had a tag). We gave up when Boo started reaching her claws under the door to the room we had the poor cat sequestered. We let the humane society deal with it.
Now that Boo is middle aged she's not quite the spitfire towards other cats that she once was. She still puffs up and hisses at the outdoor cats that like to wave their tails under her nose from the other side of the glass but doesn't go quite as ballistic as she once did. I'm actually surprised with how well the transition seems to be going. Not that everything is peachy keen in cat world, but at least neither one is intent on killing the other. I'll take that. Surprisingly I think Boo may be losing the battle of Alpha Animal (Zoe just follows along...she's far from the alpha in this house!) because she's actually scared of the new cat. She does her fair share of puffy fur growling and hissing and is most definitely annoyed with me but mostly she seems nervous. I'm wondering if the fact that the new kitty is a non-neutered male might have something to do with it. He hasn't been very aggressive but definitely curious about everything including Boo. I don't think sharing comes naturally to cats so we'll see how this goes. If it's just not going to work I'll be hitting you all up to find him a new home, but I hope it doesn't come to that because I kind of like him!
We've had the cat since Sunday afternoon and still have no name for him so the poor thing goes by the moniker "new cat". It's really kind of sad. Ethan wants to name him Spikey and hasn't changed his vote since the beginning. Grace has suggested Prince and Alladin, though she thought my suggestions of George and Walter were okay. David liked Hobbes, Fritz, and Dutch and I'm a fan of Oliver. Our other two animals both have three letter names (not intentional) and I was thinking of other three letter names to continue the theme like Ryu or Pax.
As friendly as the new cat is I don't think he's ever lived in a house. He's fascinated by rolls of toilet paper and can shred it like nobody's business. He was super interested in the printer when I printed coupons out tonight. He jumps on counters and tables all the time and is learning that is NOT okay in our house. He uses the litter box but throws litter all over the place with his enthusiastic digging.
Any good name suggestions or tips to help our cats learn to coexist?
1 comments:
What a sweet guy!! I LOVE cats... and we had three growing up. We started off with one... then another... then another. So that one had to adjust to two new cats, and he did NOT like it at first. but over time, they all got used to it and they all get along now.
I say, just give it time.
And I LOVE the name Hobbes for this kitty:)
Post a Comment