the plan

A new milestone was reached in my relationship with Oliver. I've been noticing that occasionally, he'll flop on his side, like he might want his tummy rubbed. But when I have tried he responded with gentle nips with his teeths - a tummy trap! So, I have worked hard to resist the temptation of his sweet tummy furs.

Then earlier tonight, when I arrived home, he was lying in wait for me on the back porch. I sat on the step and he instantly hopped up in my lap. After a few minutes of pets, he flopped on his side and asked to have his tummy rubbed, this time with no teeth involved!

This moment was so delightful. It appears his trust of me has gone to a new level. Of course my heart melted once again. I continue to be amazed at how the cats are always finding new ways to bring joy to my heart.

If you look close, you can see the cut just below his left eye. His eyes look funky because of the camera flash, thankfully, they both continue to look well. I keep looking over the wound and eye, looking for signs of infection. I'm not a vet, but from what I can tell, so far everything seems ok. 

I just looked up how to treat cuts and lacerations in the Cat Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook, but because this is so close to his eye, I'll have to take him next door to the vet if I decide it needs treating.

Thanks everyone for the encouragements and great suggestions on bettering my chances of a happy integration. My plan for Saturday will be to lock up all the inside kitties in an upstairs bedroom and then to let Oliver explore the entire downstairs. I currently have Feliway difusers going all over the house and I'll hose down important things with the Feliway spray. I'll also be supervising him closely to make sure he doesn't decide to mark with urine, as he has a tendency to do.

Depending on how that exploration goes, on Sunday, I might try repeating the same while letting Theo or Nahum out to interact with Oliver. There are many things that I have been considering before formal introductions occur. 

• Exchanging scents is often one of the early steps in kitty integration. This can be easily done by using a sock or towel and rubbing the face and other gland areas of each cat and then allowing the other cats to smell those scents on the cloth. I haven't done this as formally, but considering every time I come in from holding Oliver, all the indoor cats take a thorough aromatic inventory of my clothes seems to accomplish the same thing. Oliver gets to smell the indoor cats every time I visit with him.
• The layout of the first floor of the house is all open space, so I don't really have rooms that I can work with to keep the space smaller. Ideally, I could do this in a bathroom or just the bathroom and kitchen. Of course the bathroom has a door, but it also houses both of the indoor cats' litter boxes, and I would rather Oliver not start by smelling those.
• I'm most worried about the possibility of a serious cat fight occurring. Oliver has shown himself willing to fight off intruder kitties from his yard. I have never seen any of the inside kitties truly fight, only play-fight. Oliver has very sharp claws, the inside cats do not. I really don't want anyone getting hurt. So, I want to allow Oliver to have the ability to run out the back door in case he gets freaked out but I don't want Theo or Nahum to be able to follow him. And I want Theo or Nahum to be able to run upstairs to escape Oliver if they so desire but without Oliver being able to follow. I'm thinking Laura and I will be standing at the ready with water pistols and loud sound makers in hand. If anything starts to get ugly, I sure hope these devices work to separate them.

I'll see how these two steps go before going further with the plan. A little while back, someone suggested the book Cat vs. Cat: Keeping Peace When You Have More Than One Cat by Pam Johnson-Bennett, I still need to get me a copy of this book. If it's anything like her other book, Think Like a Cat, then I know it will be very helpful. Maybe I'll browse the local used bookstore this weekend too and see what I can find. I'll keep you posted at how all this goes, so stay tuned!

new bed!

We just got our giant new kitty bed!! Hopefully the kitties, share it with us.

Theo, the first to test out the new bed

Believe it or not, it's our very first real bed! It only took 17 years! It's a really simple design. Soon, we will be getting a new mattress to go with the new bed, I can't wait.

The bed is from LL Bean (Rangeley Bed) and it was actually made in Maine, USA! Can you believe it?! It's made from Ash and it feels very solid. The craftsmanship is fantastic, I really like the simple look of it. Assembly even went smoothly. I was a little worried when I saw the beat-to-hell condition of the boxes, but somehow the pieces arrived without damage.

And check this out, the bed was manufactured for us just 5 days ago! We ordered it on January 28, it was created on February 3rd and we received it at the house (Maine to Washington State) on February 7th. It's amazing the finish had time to dry before they shipped it.

We also ordered a small bench for the mudroom from LL Bean. It was made in China and although it went together rather easily, one leg is a quarter inch shorter than the others - which is not going to work! 

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On a separate note, when loving on Oliver this evening, I noticed he has a smaller laceration just under his left eye. That really bothers me, I don't know if he has been fighting or what happened, but I don't like seeing fresh wounds, especially so close to the eye. I think I will re-double my efforts this coming weekend of introducing him to the inside cats. I'll also check Oliver over to see if he has any other wounds and I'll keep an eye on laceration to make sure it doesn't get infected.

Also, someone asked about Oliver's Family. I have not seen all four black cats together since the day of trapping. I have seen one or maybe two of the family back in the late evening, but never together. So, I don't really know if they are all back or how they are doing. They have regressed back to being very skittish and fearful. 

I have noticed that lately in the mornings, all the food I put out at night is gone, so I am assuming that means they are all coming late and feasting, but it that is only one of many possibilities as to where the food is going. It would be fun to get a wildlife camera to see who is really getting the food. But with all this new furniture, that's not in the budget!

choices

This past weekend was gloriously sunny and warm, a rare treat for February. I spent as much time futzing around outside as I possibly could. I'm aways at war with the pesky blackberry bushes, so I took the chance to pull up as many as I could find. Oliver, being my resident outside cat, was with me the whole time. Every so often, I took a break from my futzing to play with or love on him - he so loves to play or be held.

Getting good pictures of Oliver can be a challenge. I often like to get my kitty pictures down on kitty level, but when I kneel to get a shot of Oliver, he abandons his toy and comes running over for loves!

Enjoying some string play

 Posing with his string prize

Playing with the birdie

Preparing to pounce on the birdie

Posing with the birdie prize.

I really liked having an outside cat while working in the yard. He was always right there with me or nearby. For a while now, I have thought it would be nice to have kitty company when working in the yard, but I've never let any of the inside cats out for fear they would run after a squirrel or something and never come back. I don't have to worry about that with Oliver, he's not going anywhere.

With the warmer weather and more frequent sun, the inside cats have been really wanting to get out on their enclosed porches. But porch time has been severely restricted due to Oliver's presence. Buddy goes too ballistic when he sees Oliver. I'm in need of a solution, as Oliver continues to lobby harder to get inside. My heart and my mind have been wrestling with Oliver's future.

I've known that my heart quickly and firmly attaches to animals. When I was around 12 years old, I visited my brother and sister-in-law who worked at a State Park in New Hampshire. I remember spending a good chunk of that summer day hanging out with them when a big friendly bushy dog appeared. I had so much fun playing with that dog, that when it came to leave I was devastated to say goodbye. I so wanted to take that dog home with me. It felt like I was having to leave my best friend behind, when in reality, we had four wonderful Chihuahuas at home and I had only known this dog for a few hours.

My mind tells me that Oliver would be happy inside with a family where he could be the only cat and get loads and loads of attention. I know I could try to introduce Oliver to the inside cats, but I have a hard time imagining it working well without Prozac for at least Oliver and Buddy (and maybe me!) - and five cats already feels like too many, six cats is certainly too many.

My heart doesn't want to part ways with Oliver. The only time I have ever parted with a dog or cat was when it was going to be put to sleep. Voluntarily giving up an animal companion feels unbearable.

I know that if I want to get more involved in TNR and rescue type activities then I need to find a compromise between my heart and mind. My earliest childhood dream was to have a huge plot of land so my mom and I could rescue all the stray dogs [and cats]. As a little tyke, I knew nothing of the realities of limited resources (income, space, time, etc.). It's frustrating being finite!

I fear my path will lead me to step further into heart-pain as I work to say goodbye to my newest kitty friend. I think it will help if it's possible to arrange visitation - if I can see that he's being well loved and cared for then I imagine my heart may not be quite as freaked out.

Meanwhile, last night on the walk home from work, I did get the chance to rescue a loose dog. I was walking along a very busy road when out of no-where appears this sweet Golden Retriever. There was no one else around. She came right up to me and flopped over to have her tummy rubbed! Seeing that no one was around, I started calling the four different phone numbers on the tag attached to her collar. The third number connected with her owner who was very thankful to have gotten his dog back. And thankfully for me, I didn't get attached to this dog!

migraine

How do you spell relief from migraine?

B - U - D - D - Y

Buddy starts by applying his healing paws to my hurting eyes...

and then follows with a perfect snuggle with maximum purrs.

So much for living it up on a Friday night. Thankfully, with Buddy's healing snuggles, a dose of Migranal and Celebrex, a damp cloth over my eyes and 14 hours of sleep the worst of it is over.

Until next time my dreaded migraine foe!

TARDIS kitty house!

I saw this over at Mousebreath earlier in the week. I love it! This guy built his cat a TARDIS play house, how perfect is that?!

This needs to be my next project, Willow would love it!

wonderfulness

Did you know that fourwhitepaws was given the Wonderfulness Award? Indeed, House of Carnivores graciously bestowed this award to us late last week. How wonderful of them!

And of course, with every award comes strings and this one is no different. The conditions of accepting this award requires me to link back to the blog of the person who awarded it to me and to pass it along to three other deserving bloggers.

So, I hereby formally accept this award. And I again thank House of Carnivores for thinking of us. And after careful consideration, I would like to pass this award on to:

• The Maple Syrup MOB - I only recently discovered this blog. It's operated by two Canadians who love cats and Doctor Who! How can you go wrong with that combination?!
• Barb's Cats and Quilts - I can't remember now how I discovered Barb's blog, but the first post I read was about a giant sock monkey and I about fell out of my chair laughing so hard.
• Cat Fosterer - Rachel built this amazing outdoor heated cat bunk house for fostering cats. She recently received her first foster cat, a very exciting experience.

Checkout some of these wonderful blogs and enjoy the riches and fame that come with receiving the Wonderfulness Award!

Willow Wednesday

Hold onto your heart or Willow might just steal it from you...