The last 6 weeks in my house have been full of adjustments. My husband spent the summer moving stuff into what was once just my house and since we returned from Ireland, he's been at "our" house full time. With an array of books, video gaming systems and even a light saber came his cat, Ithy (short for Ithaca). Ithy is a magnificent cat. He is tall, he is long, he is charcoal gray and fluffy. He is VOCAL and he is opinionated.
Now, I have 2 cats. Hannah and Grace. Grace is evil incarnate. She hisses, she spits, she coughs, she growls, she bites. She is just a nasty, nasty cat. Hannah, however, is love in a furry body. People who say they are avowed cat dislikers like Hannah. My own father even said to me once "if you ever died, I'd take Hannah, she's a great cat." Thanks dad, thanks!
I knew that the meshing of our households would be most difficult on the 3 felines in our lives. Cats are territorial. Cats do not like change. And cats do not speak English. So in preparation for this merging, I read a lot of articles about how to introduce new cats to each other -- put them in separate rooms and let them sniff each other through the door -- flip them so they can smell each other in those rooms and then let them meet and hope for the best.
Well, they met and I have to say -- it wasn't NEARLY as bad as I anticipated it would be. There was hissing. There was a bit of growling. But mostly there was retreating to their corners to stare at each other.
So fast forward about 6 weeks. My husband and I have settled into living together well. I tolerate the fact that he can't seem to close cabinet doors and he tolerates that I leave half drunk cans around the house. It's all about compromise, right? Grace and Ithy basically ignore each other. Grace hisses from time to time but really - that's par for the course with any interaction with her.
Hannah is another story. Hannah is being very territorial about this process. First of all, she loves my husband with the passion of 1000 suns. Her most favourite place to be is his lap and the fact that she has to share that with someone else really gets her where she lives. Hannah also has taken to guarding the stairs so that Ithy can't pass easily. Which is kind of funny because Ithy is a lithe 6 year old cat with a lot of energy and ability to scale furniture. Hannah is a fat 12 year old cat who has to work to jump on the bed. But the best part (and by best, I mean most annoying) is what I have no termed "The 6:10 to Yuma". At 6:10 AM there is a scuffle between Ithy and Hannah. It often involves a stampede around the 2nd floor of our house with a special stop on our bed. It involves a blood curdling yell or howl which is particularly good at waking me up from a dead sleep to a heart rate equal to that of a high intensity spinning class. It's charming. Really charming.
There is a part of me that is truly annoyed by this. My alarm goes off at 6:15 so being woken in this manner 5 minutes before wake-up time is what we would call in my house - suboptimal. But there is a part of me that truly feels for them. I am convinced that Ithy's internal monologue includes the thought "yeah dad, this was fun but can we go home now??" and Hannah's internal monologue includes the thought "get this interloper out of my house and sit down so I can have a lap". But the reality is that we don't know what either of them think - we just have to do the best that we can to help them adjust and be as safe and as comfortable as possible.
Isn't that what most of us are trying to do for the ones we love already?
I think Hannah and Grace's twins are living here in Montana. Unfortunately, we just lost our "Hannah". Isn't that always the way?
And since you brought it up, we always have conversations about what we think our animals are saying. I love it when we are doing that and they get these really great facial expressions that sort of solidify what we are thinking they are saying. Follow that? LOL
Posted by: Cassie | Sunday, 19 September 2010 at 11:43 PM