A few weeks ago CootieGirl mentioned that she wanted a cat. We still have Mini the Cat and Dobby the Dog, but she said she specifically wanted a cat that cuddles and will be hers. None of our cats were ever cuddly "do whatever you want with me" cats.
"’Yours’ means you clean out the kitty litter, and feed the cat, and fill the water bowl."
"Okay," she said.
"You need to ask your father – he’s the one that has said no more pets."
A few days later she casually brought up the idea of getting another cat for the house – one that would be hers (as in, when she moves out, if the cat is still alive, she will take it with her).
"You can get a cat," Denis said.
CootieGirl didn’t really say anything, so I said, "CG, you forgot the most important follow-up question!!"
She waited and beat before saying, "WHEN?"
A few nights later we found ourselves "cuddle-testing" cats. We narrowed it down to one cat in particular that CG really liked – he seemed cuddly (or at least tolerant) and sweet. The next day we took Denis and CootieBoy with us for a meet & greet and they agreed that the cat was pretty nice.
We filled out an application, which was processed while we played with some other cats. We were told we could pick up the kitty the following day.
CG, obviously, was SO excited.
Meet Jacob, everyone!
He is a sweet cat and we’ve done a very slow introduction amongst the animals. We’ve kept Jacob penned in our guest room with food, water, kitty litter pan and windows to view the outside. CG has spent a lot of time in that room and we’ve all taken turns sleeping in there to keep the cat company. We have baby gates set up in the doorway so that Jacob can see out and the animals can all sniff/see each other without fighting.
Dobby the Dog desperately wants to be friends with the new kitty, but the new kitty is not having it. The result of one meet & greet between them was a cat/dog fight which found the cat the victor. However, over the past week we’ve let them encounter each other more organically until we finally reached a point last night where they got within a foot of each other in the home office and the cat DIDN’T hiss and arch his back in protest but gingerly stepped past the anxiously excited dog and came into the room.
As for Mini the Cat, she is NOT happy to have another cat in the house again. I figured she’d be fine since she was in a multi-cat household for 16 of her 19 years, but the first time she saw Jacob she had the true definition of a hissy fit. I was in awe of her reaction. As such, we’ve kept the cats separate for the most part, with minimal interaction thus far. Yesterday we let Jacob roam the house freely the entire evening and had no issues – but then, Mini is deaf and once she’s asleep in her chair in the kitchen she has no idea what’s going on around her. As Jacob was roaming, she didn’t hear his collar tags jingling, so we had a cat fight free evening.
All in all, he’s a nice addition to the house and CG is thrilled to have a cat that doesn’t mind her loving on him all the time. He is super soft, loves to purr and his yellow eyes are gorgeous.
