We went to the Humane Society in Alexandria on Wednesday and picked up a new kitteh to be a companion for Fat Cat. His name is Marty (not that he answers to it, mind you) and he's somewhere between 2 and 3 years old. He's mostly white, except for 2 oval black spots on top of his head, between his ears, black oblongs on his right front and back legs, and his tail is black.
He and Fat Cat are still getting to know one another, with a hiss every now and then when they pass each other too closely, or a pawslap now and then. But no caterwauling catfights yet, though Fat Cat has chased Marty through the house a few times (this is good for Fat Cat, I haven't seen him move this much in a long time....lol). Marty has checked out all of the cat toys we have, and even Fat Cat has played with them more than he has in a long time, so I think getting another cat is good for him (he's been walking through house, meowing and looking for Slick, so I know he misses him, after all, they had been together for 10 years).
Marty is a very vocal, affectionate cat now that he's getting used to us, and he comes down to sleep with us after we've gone to bed. The first night, he slept on my hip (and here I thought my fibro was doing pretty good till I had a cat walking on me). Last night, he slept with DH and didn't want to move to let him up to go the bathroom in the middle of the night (DH had to slide out of bed around the cat, good thing we have a king-size bed now).
I went to do some grocery shopping today, and when I got home, I could hear Marty meowing, but I couldn't find him. I finally narrowed it down to the area around the washer/dryer, but couldn't figure out if he was in the crawl space under the house where the washer/dryer are (a cat can get in there from our basement bedroom if he's determined) or if he was actually behind the washer/dryer (the stairs to the second floor go up right beside the area where the w/d are, so there's a shelf creating a triangular space from the top of the dryer to the wall and then just open space we can't use underneath that shelf because it's right next to the dryer and the rest of the staircase, down to the floor, is solid wall). Yeah, he was behind the dryer/under the shelf next to the dryer and I couldn't get to him to get him out and he didn't have any room to jump out. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, just pull the dryer out, and let the cat out. But this space is really tight (leave it to a cat to find a tight place that's difficult to get him out of), and there's less than half an inch of space between the washer and dryer, no space between the washer and the wall, and no space between the dryer and the shelf. Lucky me. I finally figured out that if I opened the dryer door, I could lift up the dryer enough to pull it forward over the aluminum strip between the two different linoleums on the floor. I got the dryer far enough forward that Marty, with sufficient coaxing from me, finally decided he could jump out of there. Knowing cats as well as I do, this probably will not be the only time he does this, so I think DH is going to have to put up a shelf that rests on the back of the dryer so we can keep him out of there (and probably one for the washer too, just in case). And it's not like those shelves won't get used, so it's kinda like killing 2 birds with one cat-proofing stone.
Here are some pics I took of Marty with my cell phone:
He and Fat Cat are still getting to know one another, with a hiss every now and then when they pass each other too closely, or a pawslap now and then. But no caterwauling catfights yet, though Fat Cat has chased Marty through the house a few times (this is good for Fat Cat, I haven't seen him move this much in a long time....lol). Marty has checked out all of the cat toys we have, and even Fat Cat has played with them more than he has in a long time, so I think getting another cat is good for him (he's been walking through house, meowing and looking for Slick, so I know he misses him, after all, they had been together for 10 years).
Marty is a very vocal, affectionate cat now that he's getting used to us, and he comes down to sleep with us after we've gone to bed. The first night, he slept on my hip (and here I thought my fibro was doing pretty good till I had a cat walking on me). Last night, he slept with DH and didn't want to move to let him up to go the bathroom in the middle of the night (DH had to slide out of bed around the cat, good thing we have a king-size bed now).
I went to do some grocery shopping today, and when I got home, I could hear Marty meowing, but I couldn't find him. I finally narrowed it down to the area around the washer/dryer, but couldn't figure out if he was in the crawl space under the house where the washer/dryer are (a cat can get in there from our basement bedroom if he's determined) or if he was actually behind the washer/dryer (the stairs to the second floor go up right beside the area where the w/d are, so there's a shelf creating a triangular space from the top of the dryer to the wall and then just open space we can't use underneath that shelf because it's right next to the dryer and the rest of the staircase, down to the floor, is solid wall). Yeah, he was behind the dryer/under the shelf next to the dryer and I couldn't get to him to get him out and he didn't have any room to jump out. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, just pull the dryer out, and let the cat out. But this space is really tight (leave it to a cat to find a tight place that's difficult to get him out of), and there's less than half an inch of space between the washer and dryer, no space between the washer and the wall, and no space between the dryer and the shelf. Lucky me. I finally figured out that if I opened the dryer door, I could lift up the dryer enough to pull it forward over the aluminum strip between the two different linoleums on the floor. I got the dryer far enough forward that Marty, with sufficient coaxing from me, finally decided he could jump out of there. Knowing cats as well as I do, this probably will not be the only time he does this, so I think DH is going to have to put up a shelf that rests on the back of the dryer so we can keep him out of there (and probably one for the washer too, just in case). And it's not like those shelves won't get used, so it's kinda like killing 2 birds with one cat-proofing stone.
Here are some pics I took of Marty with my cell phone:
