We have become a two cat family!
Annie has been with us since last June. She appeared in our backyard, and I said, MINE!
No. I'm joking. I have some ethics.
I went online and searched through lost cats. I also walked around the neighborhood and went to Petsmart to see if she had a microchip.
After all that, and a trip to the vet, she became ours.
Annie is sweet, adorable, and hilarious.
She has also gotten a bit fat (my fault), and now she's on a diet.
Originally we had wanted to adopt two cats together, but Annie didn't come to the backyard with a partner. For the past several months, we've gone back and forth from wanting a second cat and not wanting a second cat.
One of the main reasons we wanted a second cat is so that Annie could have company when we go out of town.
We have a cat sitter come everyday. The problem is Annie is scared of non-family humans and hides the whole time. We went to Disney World in February, and Annie had almost two weeks of no interaction with another living thing. Well...I guess I can hope that she bonded with a cockroach. Maybe they had some good conversations.
Now the problem with adopting a second cat for potential companionship is cats don't always get along with other cats. There's no guarantee of BFF's. It could end up so bad that we have to keep the cats permanently separated.
Hopefully it won't end up being that bad!
Hopefully it won't end up being that bad!
We adopted Yeti from the Humane Society last Tuesday.
At first his name was Snowball. We thought of keeping it but considered the fact that he might not not have had a happy life with the people who gave him that name.
We went through several names.
Tim and I liked Miyazaki for the Japanese animator. But then Jack pointed out that the name was too long.
Then we were torn between Duffy and Yeti. Both those names are Disney inspired. The Duffy is the cute bear character that is popular in Tokyo Disney. Yeti would be for our favorite Disney World ride.
We ended up with Yeti.
A lot of times, though, I end up calling him Other Cat. I'm thinking we should just use OC as a nickname.
Note: I'm not rude enough to call him Other Cat to his face. When we're together I use Yeti. It's more like when I'm talking to Tim, Jack, and Annie.
Well, here is something confusing, and sorry, I'm going to be sounding sexist.
It's hard to keep their genders straight. I didn't have problems seeing Annie as female before. But then Yeti came along. Yeti is white, which I think is more associated with female cats. Or maybe I'm just thinking of the white cat in Aristocrats. Are there other famous white female cats?
Anyway....besides that. Yeti also has a very feminine way of sitting. And he just has a very female aura in general. So my mind keeps thinking of him as a girl, and I guess my brain knows we have a male cat and female cat, so it's turned Annie into a boy.
I'm really mixing up my he's and she's.
So...here's the Annie and Yeti relationship story so far.
We're working hard on following the advice of websites and cat volunteer people.
Yeti has been living in my office. We've let them smell each other via our hands, toys, etc.
We fed them both with a door between them. The door has a fairly large space at the bottom, so they could hear and smell each other. No hissing. No growing. We thought things were going well.
A week passed and we had read that, after a week, the cats might be ready to meet.
I let Yeti walk around the house...with my supervision. Annie watched intently. She seemed uptight, but sort of okay. Then Yeti started to approach, and Annie hissed at him. I quickly separated them.
Later I tried again and chickened out before Yeti got close. I whisked him away.
Tim and I tried again that evening. This time, Annie hissed twice and growled.
We separated them.
I started feeling a bit nervous that we'd have two cats who'd forever have to be kept separated.
Then I did some reading, and found a website that talked about a much slower process. So for now, we're on hiatus regarding the cats seeing each other
Hopefully they'll end up tolerating each other, and Yeti can be free to roam the house whenever he wants.
If they end up loving each other...that would be fantastic. But...we shall see.