I just adopted a two-year-old recently neutered male cat from the local shelter, to add to my seven-cat collection.
No, wait! It’s not as crazy as it sounds!
Okay, well, I suppose it is, but “Peter” (name soon to change; current candidates are Bob the Cat, Tom Terrific, and Ringo - he has white rings above both hocks) is just such a cool cat, so frickin’ GORGEOUS and with such a laidback, easygoing, friendly disposition, well… I was delivering a donation of cat food two Sundays ago, saw him among the others waiting for homes, and was immediately smitten by his good looks. I made his acquaintance and, well… Ah. I surrendered to the madness, told the shelter folks I was interested, went home to sleep on it, still wanted him in the morning, and sweated out the possibility that someone who’d already expressed interest in him before me might adopt him. After a week’s wait, I got him! And took him home this evening. Here is a photo the shelter gave me; needless to say, there will be many more of my own to come soon.
So, how did his introduction to the resident seven go? I expected curses, threats, declarations of hostility at first, but hoped the new guy’s mellowness would smooth his acceptance. What actually happened?
I can’t believe how well things are going so far! He’s been loose for over an hour now, and is wandering around the house, sniffing and examining and softly yowling a running commentary about it all. He’s already found the basement litter boxes, and the water dishes in the kitchen.
The other cats? Fascinated, wary, but no expressions of hostility other than some mild hissing from Sophie when she gets close to him. He’s already had his butt sniffed by three or four of the guys as he walked by them. The new guy is amazingly lowkey, bleerts amiably at any of the residents who sniff nose or butt with him, and moves on, offering no aggression.
Ah, as I sit here typing at the computer, he’s just gone back downstairs for at least the fourth time. He keeps going off to explore, then coming back to flop down near me. When he first went into my bedroom, Teddy and Freddy and Squash were all in there, crouched about the periphery, watching closely. He walked near them in his ceaseless explorations without sending any of them into defensive mode, and even plopped himself down on his side for a couple of minutes under the bed, unfazed by the fact that Teddy was crouched under there also, a couple of feet away, or that Sophie was peeking under the side of the bed, hissing tentatively. Nope, he just offered a muted blleerrtt and after a bit got up and wandered off.
Not a single scream of outrage from anyone yet. His way of dealing with the others is to hold himself unaggressively, often lying down when they creep toward him, then getting up and moving away if one comes closer than a foot. He’s making it as clear as he can that he’s not looking for a fight.
Ah, okay, you just knew I had to be taking pix of all this, right? Okay, here is a lousy one, very cropped, very grainy, color’s not quite right, but it does show Ringo (I think that’s what will end up being his name) and Fred sniffing noses, without so much as a spit-hiss erupting.
Sally so far is the most horrified. She just crept into my office, her tail half-bottled out. I suspect she’ll get over it pretty quickly, though.
He sure does talk a lot. Good thing he has a small, burbly voice. Oh, and did I mention he’s utterly GORGEOUS?
