We took Bert over to a prospective adopter's house for a meet and greet and from the look of things, we all think it went fantastic!
The new human has two small, older dogs in a large house. We wanted to see how they would interact, the dogs pretty much left him alone. When one of them went over to sniff Bert, he responded with a nice hiss and the dog backed away. This seemed like a really awesome response. It told us that neither one is really afraid of the other, and the dogs respected Bert's hiss. I don't have any worry that the dogs will do anything harmful to Bert, but I do fear Bert maybe mean to the dogs and give chase and pounce on them (like he does Rose and Buddy). That's why we'll start with a trial to see how it goes.
Bert did great exploring his new home.
Notice the "tail in the air" stance indicating he already owns the place.
Bert used a safe space under the coffee-table as a nice place to rest between exploration excursions. It was really interesting to see how much he rallied when I was near to comfort him and provide him a sense of security. No question, I'm his safe-human.
Bert's looking into the kitchen and TV room, which is where the dogs are.
These two rooms are their usual territory, behind the baby-gates.
Seeing him curious and cautious about the dogs (not cowering) seems hopeful!
The adopter has had many cats before, each living to very old ages. She's been without a cat now for a little over a year and feels it's time again. The absence of a feline presence is really getting to her and lucky for her, Bert certainly has a strong feline presence!
The plan is for me to take Bert back next weekend for placement. It will be very sad for me to let him go, I've grown quite attached to him (and him to me). I'm grateful to have one last week of loving on him and soaking up his delightful presence. It also gives me time to get his vaccines updated and him chipped so he'll be fully ready to go. It helps feeling like it is a really good home for him to be going into, but I sure hope he doesn't feel like I'm abandoning him, as nothing could be further from the truth.
Please purr with me, that he won't feel abandoned and celebrate with me that Bert has a new home!
