Sunday, April 10, 2016

New Cat Files #1: The First Caturday

When I got home from work on Friday, I backed the car into the turnaround spot by the porch and started collecting my things. When I turned back to open the door, Tim was looming outside my window. I was like, "What are we doing?" And he was like, "The shelter closes in an hour so if we hurry we can at least meet the cats tonight and get things started."

Have I mentioned how much I love this man? I hadn't even thought about doing that since I was completely focused on finishing the house reorganization and cleaning that we needed to do that night. I thought maybe he was just in a hurry to grab some dinner so we could get back and get working. I'd also gotten the call from the vet that Gytha's ashes were ready to be picked up, and I'd messaged him about that. So, I was also thinking he might be in hurry since we had to do that as well as get some food.

But no, this man wanted to go meet the cats. And he wasn't just doing it for me. I mean, going to great lengths to make Cat-Mom Wife happy is one thing. Going to greater lengths because he's just as eager to be Cat-Dad Husband is an even better thing. These will be the first cats to truly be completely "ours" and that makes me a little verklempt.

When we arrived at the shelter we told them what we were looking for, and they took us in to meet Snoopy (Robert) and Yoshi (Gordon), the bonded pair of 2-year-old males we wanted. We also met a couple of the older female cats, but nothing really gelled with the ladies. The boys didn't suddenly come out of their shells or warm up to us immediately or anything, which was fine. We weren't expecting them to. So we went back to the desk, got the application, and told them we'd be back in the morning.

We got Gytha's ashes after that, which somehow seemed right to me --that she was back home before any new guys moved in, maintaining her status in a way.

Fast forward through McDonald's for dinner; running to Petco to try to grab now-immediate necessities like dry food, litter, and replacement scratcher pads; moving the rest of the furniture to complete the 'we completely rearranged half our house' project; scrubbing the old litterboxes; washing the old cat scratcher wheels, cat carriers, and other durable cat items; vacuuming the entire house one more time; and making sure everything was cat-proofed enough and/or welcoming enough to bring new cats home.

Yadda yadda exhausted; yadda yadda didn't sleep much; yadda yadda Dunkins. Within 10 minutes of the shelter opening Saturday morning, me and Achey-Semi-Zombie Husband were signing in again and handing over our application. An hour and a half after we got there we were loading their carriers into the car and heading home.

We let them out in the back hallway, with the sunroom on one side and a bathroom with a litter box on the other. Perhaps it isn't the "ideal" exclusionary situation which is recommended for new cats, but it's close. And it's as close as we were able to come in the time we gave ourselves. Yoshi-Gordon immediately slunk around behind the sunroom couch. Snoopy-Robert hid behind the blanket we use as a curtain to insulate the back door in the winter. But within a few minutes, he'd discovered the back of the couch, too. We have a king-size cotton blanket that we use as a couch cover, and it hangs down to the floor in the back. They tucked themselves between the bottom flap of the couch upholstery and the blanket, so you can't see them at all when they are back there. But, you can see where the blanket is pulled taut over them. We moved a water bowl, a couple of food bowls, a few toys, and a scratcher wheel in there and left them alone.

We left them alone most of the day. I sat on their couch while I talked to Mom on the phone for awhile. We went in and talked to them periodically throughout the day. Then at about 8 last night we decided to go hang out on the couch in there for a bit before going to bed. Tim worked on his computer, and I played Solitaire on my iPod. I was exhausted and was about to go to bed when we heard little noises from behind the couch. Then we realized we could hear purring. That woke me up a bit, so I stayed a little longer. I was about to fall asleep sitting up when I heard more noises from behind the couch. A black head peeked up over the back and looked around, then disappeared. Of course, that woke me up again, so I waited a bit longer to see if there would be any further developments. But, there weren't any before we finally decided to haul our weary butts to bed.

I actually slept really well, confident that they would be fine and hoping they would come out and explore while we slept. I got up this morning, and was washing my face in the upstairs bathroom when I realized it looked like the litter box in that bathroom had been used. I put on my glasses and was so excited to find it was true I almost woke Tim up just to tell him. I'm not sure I've ever been so happy to clean a pee clump out of a litter box. That means at least one of them came upstairs!!

That made me even more eager to get downstairs to look for evidence of exploration. The first thing I saw was a broken food bowl on the dining room floor, and I actually laughed because I was so happy to see that they'd been out doing things. I don't know why I even left the extra empty food bowls out. I'd set them up on the old feeding spot on top of the radiator cover even though we hadn't put out any wet food for them. My first thought was actually, "Well, it's a good thing I went ahead and ordered more last night!"

The second thing I noticed was that there were toy mice in places I hadn't left them. I'm not even sure yet if they are all new ones or if they managed to find ones under furniture that I missed. That would be impressive!

I checked the sunroom and both food bowls had been obviously gobbled from. The downstairs litter box had also been used.

For now they are back behind the couch, but at least I know they are eating, peeing, playing, and exploring, and that's actually more than I'd allowed myself to expect the first night.



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