The Good, The Bad, and The Kitten: page 3
Cramping Gracie's Style
You may be wondering why this article is title "The Good, The Bad, and The Kitten". It should be sufficient to say that there are three cats in the household, and each one has an appropriate title. For those of you with a need for details, here they are.
The kitten spent friday night in the garage. Annette decided he needed a bed, so while I went and grabbed all the clean rags, she picked out a box for his bed. You might say that I'm reading a lot into this, but I think she really wanted to keep the kitten, since she chose to use a box her dad had made, rather than the cardboard one I found.
The next day, we went down to Petco to talk to someone about getting the cat adopted. As it turns out, this is not the height of kitten season. Kitten season happens twice a year. Once during Easter (bunnies hate kittens) and again during Christmas.
Our kitten would need to stay cute and fuzzy for three months to get adopted out. Looking around me at the cages full of tiny fuzzballs I had to wonder what his chances were. Our "kitten" is at least two months older than the oldest ball-of-cuteness at Petco.
He's definitely gone through his first growth spurt, which makes him more long and lanky. Three months of sitting on the shelf would leave him looking like an adult. I did not want to save him from one miserable existance just to dump him into another.
I told Annette that if we can't get him adopted out now, we should keep him. She caved at this point and told me we're keeping the cat because she can't refuse me. Especially when its what she wants too.
So, with our minds made up, we went home, scooped up the kitten from the garage, and carried him into his new "safe zone". After putting all his stuff into the library, I walked upstairs with him in my arms. I noticed that Nougat (our big flamepoint siamese) was completely oblivious, but Gracie, (the little calico girl cat) was very agitated.
The first night we had the kitten in the library, Gracie spent a majority of her time sitting at the doorway hissing. Nougat spent his time making mournful yowling noises. He was definitely distressed by her animosity toward his new toy. The only thing that kept either of them from the kitten was a wall of child safety gates blocking the doorway.
It occured to me that Gracie could be upset because any number of reasons:
Cats are territorial, the sudden loss of one of her rooms might make her feel like she lost a lot of freedom. She already tries to sneak into the sewing room at every oportunity. Having a little cat take up a whole room may just be too much for her.
I decided to put a scratching post in the library. Of course, she loves that post. I could swap it out with the one we keep downstairs, but she may just turn up her nose to her favorite, as it now has boy cat cooties.
Then there is the fact that this little cat has not been fixed -- yet. Gracie's been pregnant before. Even though she's fixed, and can't get pregnant, she probably does NOT appreciate the smell of an un-fixed cat.
It could be any one of these, but I suspect it's all of them. Hopefully, once we get the kitten fixed, the amount of hissing and growling will subside enough to drop the wall of baby gates.
September 28, 2005: Snip Snip
it's still a showdown at the NOT so OK corral, but tomorrow, Junior goes to the vet to get "tutored".
September 29, 2005: a day of (me-owch!) infamy
Junior no longer has balls. He spent the day at the vet while Annette and I worked to pay for his "elective" surgery. What an odd name we decided to give him, Junior. At least he used to be a little boy cat. He "meuued" like a little girl all the way home in the car, then slept like a rock.
October 3, 2005: all's quiet on the home front
After a weekend of having guests overnight, and running around all day at a tourney, it occured to me that the cats were behaving very well together since Junior got snipped. I guess I was right, testosterone, territory, and toys were the issue.
