I haven’t posted here for a while, due to a little distraction:
That people who volunteer at cat shelters sometimes end up with new pets isn’t much of a surprise. But I was resisting the lure pretty well, until Jean started to waver—even though he only knew of Shawnee based on my descriptions (and a few cell phone photos).
Shawnee had been at the shelter from the first day I volunteered, but I only really noticed her some months later, after she got some extensive dental work done. This left her with no teeth whatsoever, but also, with an altered personality. Whereas previously she’d been at best aloof, at worst cranky, she became very friendly and affectionate. From my perspective, all of a sudden this little tabby cat was coming up to me for pets and face rubs.
By summer (I started volunteering in January), she was added to the shelter adoption list. (Not all the cats under this shelter’s care are considered adoptable.) Shawnee was about six years old, and had been at shelter for about two years. Previous to that, she’d been a colony cat. She was part of a TNR (trap/neuter/release) program, only they decided to not release her (despite clipping her ear). She was at the Humane Society for a while, then brought over to Pet Patrol.
I didn’t particularly need another cat, so I fairly relieved to hear, a couple months later, that she had a prospective adopter. This person took their time deciding, but finally did bring Shawnee home. It was funny to not see her at the shelter, but I was happy for her…
…until my next volunteer shift, when she was back at the shelter. Turns out she’d spent all her time at her new home hiding in a closet. After four days, she was returned.
Jean and I hemmed and hawed about it through the fall, but finally in January, we went out to see her. And brought her back home.
Though the standard advice is to let the new cat be completely on their own in a dedicated room after adoption, given Shawnee’s history of always living with lots of cats, they suggested she could meet ours after a day or two. And indeed, the meetings generally went well. Mac was a little dubious at first, and she had to make some moves to win him over. But she generally did.
Gus seemed pretty enamored of her. She wasn’t quite as sure about him, but seemed OK as long as he kept a little distance.
Shawnee was getting comfortable with us (she already knew me, which helped), seemed OK with the cats, and was starting to explore the rest of the house. It seemed as though we’d have this whole adoption thing settled in a couple of weeks.
Or not.
Though he seemed OK with the new cat, it was a change, and Gus was a bit on edge about it. And one day, in trying to deter Gus from approaching Shawnee when she probably wasn’t into it, we were inadvertently over-stimulated him. When released, he responded by pouncing on her. Tiny cat disappeared underneath big galoot.
We separated them quickly enough, and neither was hurt. But we thought it wise to then give Shawnee a bit of time off from other cats visiting her room. A few days later we resumed with only Mac visiting, and she actually seemed kind of happy to see him. Then later yet, we invited Gus back in. That was also generally OK, though we still had to intervene to keep some space. We just did it more gently vis-a-vis Gus.
Over the next while, we were keeping the door to her room open quite a bit, figuring she’d eventually want to go out exploring again. Only, she didn’t really? She pretty much stayed put, and the only time she would venture out a bit was with us—never on her own.
It also seemed that even in her room, when the boys visited, she didn’t get out much. She spent a lot of time cubby-ing, waiting for them to fall asleep before she’d start walking about. Whereas when alone in the room with us humans, she was very playful and interactive. (In fact, she’s a delight. She loves people, she loves pets, she loves playing, she loves chatting at us. She’s just also very cautious about new cats and new situations.)
This situation wasn’t ideal for the humans, either. Shawnee’s room was Jean’s upstairs office, and it was becoming the central meeting place for all three cats and both humans. He didn’t always love that. And I didn’t always love having to spend so much time up there, if I wanted any kitty company.
It seemed another approach was needed.
Enter: The cat gate.
With this setup, Shawnee could have the whole upstairs to herself, while the boys had the other two floors (where, pre-Shawnee, they spent 95% of their time, anyway). This ended up working out pretty well! Shawnee gained more and more confidence about leaving her room, until she was taking full ownership of the entire floor.
We’d let the boys in periodically to visit our room and have a little supervised interaction with her, but it was good for them to get reacquainted with the rest of the house.
Only issue was, we didn’t want to have a gated upstairs forever? And we weren’t entirely sure what, precisely, to do to get Shawnee more comfortable with the boys (especially Gus) and habituated to the rest of the house.
Enter: the cat behaviorist.
The Toronto Humane Society offers reasonably priced virtual sessions with pet behaviorists, if you’ve adopted a cat (not necessarily from them). There’s a big questionnaire to fill out, then a meeting with some follow-ups. We were given exercises to do, such as working toward getting Shawnee to eat with the boys, and finding activities to distract Gus from Shawnee so he’d do something other than approach her when she didn’t want that.
At the time, it seemed impossible that we’d get Shawnee willing to come outside the gate to eat her meal with Gus and Mac in her sight lines. And indeed, it took days into weeks, working her down the hallway, then at the open gate, then through the gate.
But by now she sits waiting at the gate for her food, and walks out to eat it without hesitation. We’re at the point of working her down the stairs.
And—while this is a very recent development—she’s become eager to check out the other floors. She’s doing so daily, more than once a day. I know this doesn’t sound like much, a cat walking around a house sniffing at things, but it feels momentous.
There’s definitely lots of work still to do, specifically on how to get the three coexisting more regularly in the same space—on any floor. But at the least the trend is positive.
Anyway. That’s all taken up a certain amount of time, and mental bandwidth. (And I didn’t even get into Gus’ hairball-related health issues and resultant need to adopt a new diet.)
Apart from that…
I’ve still been volunteering at Pet Patrol (the cat shelter), though I’ve somewhat settled on once a week now, and only evening shifts. This snowy winter sometimes made driving there a challenge; I’m glad that’s behind me! (And I haven’t been tempted to adopt any other cats.)
I’ve signed up for another session of line dance classes, staying at the same level. It’s still fun, except there seems to be a little too much country’n’western music at times? I might try requesting “Uptown Funk”.
I’ve taken in some live performances:
- The Prince, an Abigail Thorn play in which transgender characters from William Shakespeare’s plays realize they are trapped in a performance and try to escape. Very interesting!
- Classic Albums Live: Prince’s Purple Rain, at Centre in the Square. I’d seen this performed in Toronto previously, but this version was even better. Great night out.
- Rock Orchestra, a group that performs classic rock songs all on classical instruments. Very talented musicians, good selection of songs, sold out show.
- Candelight string quartet performing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, which is always enjoyable.
Restaurant-wise, Jean and I tried out Puddicombe House’s little private heated rooms for winter dining. Enjoyed the food and it was a pleasant, novel experience. We also tried Cambridge’s The French restaurant again, on a quiet weeknight. We called that Jean’s early birthday dinner.
We traveled to Timmins for Easter, stopping in Orillia on the way up. Timmins still had (has?) a shocking amount of snow! Even for there! The snow banks were just astonishing in size.
It was great to visit with family and friends. Jean’s side had a pretty large outdoor gathering which allowed Jean to visit with some extended family he hadn’t seen in some time. I visited with my brother, niece, one nephew, and of course my Dad.
(Shawnee did well with the catsitter, fortunately. Gus and Mac always do.)
Upon our return, we had some work done on the house. We replaced our natural gas furnace (which was still working, but was old) and air conditioner with a heat pump and air exchanger. And we replaced our rented natural gas water heater with a purchased electric water heater. Slightly disruptive for three days, but everything went well.
I’ve also acquired a new, lighter ebike, though I’ve only managed to use it once, as it seems to keep raining here.
I wrote a few letters complaining about the state of the world. For example: Ford’s changes with disenfranchise local voters (second one).
I re-subscribed to Netflix and caught up on a few shows (before I unsubscribe for a while again):
- The first season of Man on the Inside was pretty heart-warming.
- I liked the fifth season of Emily in Paris more than expected (as I don’t expect much). The break from the Emily / Camille / Gabriel drama was nice!
- I decided to pass on the last season of Stranger Things. Maybe I’ll tackle it next round.
- The Beast in Me, with Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys, was higher quality than a lot of Netflix stuff. I do like both those actors.
- Canadian figure skating romantic comedy / drama Finding Her Edge was so bad. In every respect—acting, storyline, characters, resolution, sport, cinematography—it only served to emphasize how far, far superior the superficially similar Canadian hockey romantic comedy / drama Heated Rivalry was (available on Crave in Canada, HBO elsewhere).
The Canadian sports romance to watch. (Even if you prefer figure skating to hockey.)
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