Cat integration
Surprisingly, this hasn't yet involved Greebo digesting Spoons.
On Saturday Spoons was shut in the bathroom while we moved furniture in. Greebo had vanished with all the ruckus. After all the furniture was in, the cat door, and other doors & windows were all locked, and Spoons was brought into the lounge. He promptly turned himself into a little black furry pancake and scuttled under the couch, where he stayed for the next five hours - a pair of glowing green eyes in the dark. We headed off to Laura's birthday party for the evening.
When I got home a bit before midnight (Andrew was staying at Rach's), I had to do a runner around from the back door to the front as Greebo was complaining that the cat door wasn't working, and there was no way I was going to get through the back door without him getting in. And then I couldn't find Spoons... He wasn't under the couch, he wasn't under Andrew's bed, or behind the curtains, or in the spare room, and I could have sworn that I'd shut my bedroom door before leaving for the party. Greebo had managed to flick down one of the cat door locks, and if you push on the cat flap in the right direction, a cat as small as Spoons could possibly fit through the gap. I was getting a bit frantic by the time I pulled enough boxes out from under my bed to find the glowing green eyes again. Phew! He scuttled out and made a break for Andrew's room. I put the litter box in there, and some water, and shut him in for the night. Greebo was happy to be allowed back inside that he didn't seem to notice the new cat smells, I guess Andrew's furniture smelled of new cat anyway.
Sunday morning, I got up around 8.30, fed Greebo outside and locked him out of the house and let Spoons out of the room and went back to bed. Around 10.30 I was woken by the sound of cats yowling at each other through the cat door. I locked Spoons in A's room and let Greebo in for cuddles, then when he went out again, I'd let Spoons out to roam the house. Rinse & repeat. Continued my search for Feliway (that happy cat pheromone stuff). The vet had been closed by the time I stopped by on Saturday, and the pet store didn't have it as it's vet-only medication. Conveniently talkingfrog had said I could borrow their diffuser, so I only had to get the significantly cheaper refill. The Tawa vet didn't have it in stock, and their Paremata branch was also out. The vet in J-ville didn't have it in either and said that the supplier would take several weeks to get it in. Rang Animates in Kaiwharawhara while I was at talkingfrog's, and they must have had the very last refill in the city, so shot down there to pick it up. About 10 minutes after I'd plugged it in, Spoons was rolling around on the floor in front of it, and wandering up for pats. Quite a change.
A eventually came home and I let Greebo in and A brought Spoons into the lounge, and hilarity ensued. I forget how big Greebo is when I haven't got anything to compare him with.
Normally, when two cats first encounter each other, there is a game of cat chess where the participants maneuver and size each other up, and, through some relatively arcane calculations, decide that one is the winner and the other scarpers. When you drop two cats into the same room together, you kind of bypass that, so everybody immediately freezes, and then the yowling starts.
"What are you doing in my house?"
"I think I live here now."
"Oh really? This is quite definitely my house, please leave."
"But I can't leave! And all my stuff is here, and it's all weird, waaah! Ooh, catnip!"
"Ooh, catnip!"
*cats get distracted by catnip for several minutes, only occasionally remembering that there is another cat in the room.*
Some noise startled Spoons enough that he ended up down the hall, and Greebo stalked after him, but then they got into range of the pheromone dispenser, and then cat loafed at each other for a while. Spoons eventually went into his room, and Greebo came and sat with me for the rest of the evening.
So there has been no physical violence, occasional yowling, only one hiss, and I think that was actually at me for daring to pat Greebo when he was mid-confrontational stare. I locked Greebo out of the house with his food today, and I'll let him back in when I get home. We'll see how round two goes. Hopefully as well as the first.