Now on to Joey:
After we had Bob about a year it seemed that he needed a friend (Ok, we wanted another kitty and didn’t think that Bob would mind too much). He seemed to get along with the other kitties that he met at the vet’s office. This was also at the height of Bob’s little (big?) weight problem and we thought that another kitty might help him be a more active and thus help keep his weight down. So we started a new kitty quest. Thus we happened upon Joey.
We found Joey at the same shelter that we found Bob at. This was to be my girlfriend’s kitty as I had picked out Bob. She was in the room that they keep the socialized cats in and thought that this was a good choice. She let us pet her and was not unfriendly to either of us, so we asked about her. A brief physical description, Joey is a DSH or DMH kitty, has tabby markings, and weighs about 9 or 10 pounds. I know that she is a normal sized kitty, but she seems tiny next to Bob.
It turned out that Joey had quite a history, she was labeled a semi-feral. She was born in a cat colony to a feral mother and was not picked up right away so was not properly socialized to people at a young age but she was taken in by the shelter when she was still quite young, so they spent some time and tried to socialize her. She spent about 2 years at the shelter and was then adopted by a couple. They unfortunately never got her to come out of her hiding spot and so she spent a year and half hiding under a bed and only coming out to use the litter box and at night for food. The shelter did not speak ill of the couple so I am pretty sure that she was not abused, it was probably just not the right type of environment for Joey. Which does happen and the couple did care enough to bring her back when it was very clear that they were unable to work with Joey. So at this point Joey is about 3 and half by the best estimates and she spent the next year and half at the shelter. I did not feel very bad about this as the people there are really nice and they take very good care of there kitties. I know this because I found out that Joey had developed a tight bound with one of the volunteers that worked there and he had taken care of her like she was his own, he just could not take her home. We still thought that she deserved a permanent home.
Anyway, we asked about her and they interviewed us and gave us her complete history and that she was a semi-feral and that she would probably always be a little skittish, but that she was a good kitty and would probably become more friendly the more comfortable she got. The told us that she had not been adopted since she had come back because she always hid up high and nobody saw her. They were glad that we saw her and were interested in her because we had a history that they could trace with Bob and they knew that he was doing well. However, we still had to be interviewed by the lady who was the feral cat expert, because of Joey’s past. She was off the day that we applied, so we had to wait for a day.
It turned out that the lady, who deals with feral cats, is also the one that got the final say on the adoption of abused cats because it was the person who we interviewed with before we were allowed to take Bob home. She had no problem with giving Joey to us. She gave us all the information that we need to introduce Joey to her new home and to Bob. She also let us know that there was no shame in bringing her back as a feral cats can be very hard to acclimate. I have done some reading since we got Joey and it is very had to get a feral kitty to integrate into a home. I am glad I did not know this before hand.
Anyway to make an already very long story a little shorter, we brought her home and had the “excitement” of introducing 2 cats. Which started rough, but now they at least tolerate one another, and can even be friendly. I will post pictures.
She is still very skittish and I have to be careful when I approach her, but at least I can approach her and she is not hiding all of the time. She is even comfortable enough that she does not jump ever time that one of us walks into the room.
She has warmed up to us quite a bit. Shortly after she had run of the house she found some towels on the dryer in the laundry room and grabbed one and I think that she had decided that we need a present because she dragged it up 2 half flights of stairs and dropped it at the door to the bedroom, meowing all the way letting us know that she was bringing up a present. She is not a quiet demur kitty when it comes to her voice, she has very loud meow. We first thought that she may be trying to create a nest or something so she could hide, so we left the towels there. When she ran out of towels she started in on the dry cleaning that was out, and that was not good. I took the towels back to see what she would do and that night she moved them back upstairs. So it has become tradition that the towels get dragged from the laundry room. I have placed a bunch of smallish towels in a basket and that is what she brings us. She also has the 4 original towels that she started with which are bath towels that are larger then her. I have not gotten a picture of this yet because she will not do this while we are watching. She stared doing this during the night and we got so used to it that we do not wake up anymore. As she has gotten more comfortable with us and stays out more and more, she started doing it during the day. The target area keeps changing. For instance, when she started taking treats from us she started to drag the towels to her treat place. I called it the “Joey, Towels for Treats” program.Now she will vary the target area, I am not really sure what the determiner is. She is happy and that’s all that counts.
Within about the last 3 or 4 months she has started to come down and sit on me and we take naps together. I am really excited about this as it would be the first time that she has let anyone sit and kind of hold her. I take is as a really good sign that we are making forward progress and there may actually be hope for more in the future.
Ok, there are many more things that I could write but I will wait for another time. I really didn’t know I had that much writing in me.I usually only write short notes, thanks for reading it.
I will write about Flicka another time. Like I said she deserves her own thread and writing about her will take me a while. As it was this took me most of the afternoon to write what I have.
Now onto the picture part, once again I have to do this in several posts.
Here is the Joey girl sitting pretty.
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