The Successor. Welcoming a New Cat.

Summer is always so busy. I find it busier than the school year. Days are filled with visitors, travel, day trips and play dates. I’ve been so busy that I temporarily fell off the fitness and yoga wagon. 🙁 But I’m back on it!! I started up again and the Husband and I are even planning on doing our yoga DVD tonight. (Transformation with Jivamukti Yoga, if you’re wondering). I’ve also been doing my weights again and have been trying to eat better. For awhile the patio furniture kept calling for me to sit on it and drink beers. I’m still doing that but hopefully it evens out with all the working out I’ve been doing.

I also found some pretty solid rules on Pinterest I’ve printed out and have been trying to follow. The only one I’ve been altering is no eating after 7pm. If I have done a strong workout I have a small post-workout snack. 🙂 I will post what I found here. If it is yours please let me know! I apologize that I don’t know where I stole it from but will credit you if you let me know.

So there’s that. And when I don’t have time for a full yoga video, I have been doing shorties from www.tarastiles.com. So I feel like that part of my life is back on track a bit.

We have also added one more new thing to the household this year, a new cat. We went to The Meow Foundation here in Calgary in search of a new playmate for poor depressed Kali. She was missing Simon something fierce and very lonely. Same with the kids and I felt I needed a new distraction to move on. I still miss Simon. His memory is like that of stories of a phantom limb….if that makes sense. But I am healing.

So we went off to the Meow Foundation. I had looked at the website of kittens and cats to adopt and really wanted a black cat, preferably female- but only because personality wise I find female cats click with me more easily, and they seem to have a few less health ailments later in life. Plus, I didn’t want to feel like I was completely replacing Simon. If it was female, it would be a fresh start NOT Simon 2.0, if you know what I mean.

So off we went. Black is a dominant colour trait in cats, so there are more black cats in the world. It seemed to me that the black cats weren’t being adopted, but the girl assured me lots of black cats get picked. It just seems that way since 80% of the cats that come to them are black since it’s a dominant trait. So we do a tour. She has a cute 1-year-old cat in mind named Marie. Very pretty and I love her name. Just a gorgeous cat. But emotionally she’s a bit princess-y and standoffish. I don’t feel any emotional bond with her at all. The girl was so sure. But we say we’ll keep her in mind. She has a black female in mind who lives downstairs….

Pause. Hang on. I should explain. The Meow Foundation is a volunteer, donation based organization, and is set up in a residential house turned in to this. Kittens stay with foster families to get properly litter trained and socialized. Adult cats stay in the house. Every room has been sectioned off. There is an office in the back, and every other room is different cats. They all have toys, climbing and scratching posts and different places to sleep. Some are caged because they are new, have a cold, are quite feral still etc. The rest roam around in their rooms. There is a lot of room for all of them and the volunteers spend a lot of time playing, petting and spending time with them to socialize them and get them used to their new environment. When they have a feel for the cat, they write a personality profile so you get a cat that suits your household. The cat you pick comes to live with you for 30 days and then if all is well you become its permanent home. It’s really neat.

We go from upstairs in the front room, down a hallway, through a kitchen, and step on a bleach mat. We sanitize our hands and go down a few stairs to the basement. The main room of the basement is not where the cat she wants to show us is, so we step on a bleach mat to wipe our feet and go through another door to a smaller back room full of scratching posts, cages and newer cats to the Foundation house. There is a bit of room to play and cats lounging around. A small window leads out to a high fenced backyard. She starts to look for Abigail, and as she does a couple of cats come to greet us. A male black cat has no interest in me or the kids but wants Josh to run away with him. He keeps head-butting and rubbing against Husband. It’s funny how possessive he is. I try to pet him but it’s a no go. He doesn’t like me. In fact, none of the black cats do. They never have and I guess a memo has gone out among them. I try to pet some and while some of the black cats tolerate me none of them seem enamored with me or the kids. Not upstairs, or here in the basement. A cat comes to greet me but is a cat that would have to live alone, as it doesn’t do well with being in a multi-cat household. While she continues looking for Abigail, an odd-looking (my first impression anyway, with his orange face, white body with orange spots on the back, leading to an orange fluffy tail) cat comes up and starts to rub against the kids legs. Hunter finds a toy and starts waving it around in his face and he starts playing. Izzy steals the feather toy and starts to do the same. The girl goes, “Oh that’s Thorin, he’s not really much for playing….oh wait, he is. Never mind then!” She goes, “I don’t think he’ll be around long, he’s super sweet but not terribly social and hasn’t come out for families really”, but he proves her wrong again. He screws up his courage and tolerates the hissing of a more dominant cat to jump up on a scratch-er and get pets from Josh and I and then jumps down again to let the kids play with him and pet him. Thorin seems great and I am falling in love with him, but I’m stubborn to my original mission and ask to go upstairs to see Marie one more time to be sure, and maybe track down the cute black cat on their website I fell for from her picture. Thorin trots along behind us and acts as if he is ready to come with us. I know he is just a cat but I swear he looked disappointed. On the way upstairs she explains that Thorin would be great for a few reasons. He’s male and Kali is female. Female and male cats seem to integrate better and compete with each other less. He is fairly independent so will play with her as well, he won’t be a lap cat entirely. Also, he is a submissive male so when she hisses at him he would rather keep his distance than start something and let her come around in her own time. These are all good things. I am starting to wonder if having another male cat would be such a bad thing. I ask Josh what he thinks. He says he isn’t that fond of his coloring but it’s completely up to me and he doesn’t mind if it is a male cat instead of female. We both agree he seems sweet and was completely great with the kids. We go upstairs and do the mat and sanitizer things again. I see Marie. She is still very much a kitten and a little….spastic with the kids I guess you could say. She plays hard and likes being petted a certain way. When I was on my own in my 20’s she would have been perfect for me, but not with my family. She plays with Izzy a bit, but when she is done she jumps up on a cat tree to wash herself and look pretty. Hunter starts bringing her catnip pillows and l’il balls to entice her to play. I start looking for the black cat I wanted and find her. She runs away. She doesn’t like my kids making noise and has no interest in me at all. So that’s that. It’s between Thorin and Marie. Marie is losing room to sit pretty and loses her patience, taking a swipe at Hunter’s face. She leaves a tiny scratch and Hunter declares he doesn’t like this cat. For some reason, Izzy has suddenly come down with some thing. She seems sick. I knew she seemed tired before we came! Ugh. So she is laying with a cat on the floor begging us to take Marie, “cuz she’s pretty” and then finally saying “just pick a cat so we can go!” We get her up and convince the girl to let us trek downstairs one more time.

When we get downstairs Thorin has gone outside. We can’t find him and the other lady goes, “Oh I think he went outside a minute ago” and Josh and I both start to say it’s a shame. I am saying, “Maybe if we call for him he’ll come in?” when who should jump back in to the room through the window. I think he heard our voices and hurried back in. He rubbed against us and started to play with the kids. I bent down and he let me pet him. The girl said he seems to have picked us. He has definitely convinced me and we go upstairs to fill the paper work. Josh takes the kids to the car so Izzy can get fresh air and I get it all filled out. Then we get to take Thorin home. We integrated him in to our house slowly, as they advised and it seems to be going smoothly. Kali and Thorin still keep to themselves a lot but every once in a while they play and it’s really cute. Thorin will meow around for Kali if he’s bored.

However, the first few nights were rough. He was like having a new baby. He wasn’t used to being in a house with so few cats and visitors and it seemed like our house was too big for him at night. He’d walk around meowing until we carried him back to our bed.The Meow Foundation estimated his age to be just over two years, but he seems younger.

The very first night I put Thorin beside me and he curled up, his head using my right palm as a pillow and holding my other hand with his paws. He purred and snored. It was very cute. I was afraid to disturb him so I stayed still even though I was dying to roll over. It was so cute it was worth being uncomfortable.

So Thorin has settled in. He brings you toys and pants when you pick it up because he is excited. Like a dog. When he is tired he also pants. Like a dog, nice and loud. You can hear him across the room and over the noise of the TV if it’s on. He laps his water up like a dog too, not making little ripples with his cute little cat tongue but slurping and slapping the water with his tongue like a large dog would. If he’s bored, he goes over to the water dish and swirls it with his paw. He loves chin rubs and hates having his paws touched. He loves feather toys and will chase a feather toy around all day. He gets lonely easily and loves when you talk to him. He comes up at dinner time to scavenge for food the kids dropped. He is the only cat I’ve owned that hates yogurt as a treat. He curls up either between Josh and I or beside Josh every night. He doesn’t do it to Josh but if he is sleeping beside me he’ll pull with his paw, gently, to flatten out my hand so he can rest his head on it and will pull at my other hand til his paw is inside, holding hands style. What else? He has very distinct sounding meows that once I decode will tell me exactly what he wants. He HATES brooms but doesn’t mind the vacuum. He loves the kids. He loves cat houses and hidey holes. If he can squish in to or under it he seems so comfortable and is usually happy napping there.

So that’s our new addition! He is super interesting and we love him a lot.He reminds me of two of my fave cats I’ve had the privilege of owning, Simon and Trouble…

I will add a video of Thorin panting once I figure that out……but for now here are some photos.

This is Thorin!

This is Kali

One more of Thorin