Sunday, December 11, 2022

The Cat Report (Friday Dec 9th, 12 to 2)

Note: this report is slow to be posted because I wanted it to include some photos Janice took of the cats, but Explorer has proved unhelpful, so after some delay I'm going ahead and just posting the report itself.

--JDR


 It was a good day in the cat room, with three bonded pairs (Bingo and BongoEleanor and IrwinSeverus and Onyx) carried over from last time. The adoption since last week of Blossom and Buttercup, as well as Siamese-ish George and Paco, along with the arrival just this morning of two new cats, Lucy Lou and Bolts (both solitaries) left us with a full house: eight cats.

Thanks once again to fellow volunteer K.’s taking on taking care of the cages, plus plenty of games and attention for all the cats in turn, I was able to walk Bingo, Bongo, and Irwin, while K. made sure Eleanor had a turn. I offered Severus one but he exercised his whole veto power on the idea of the leash. We had a close call when Bingo slipped the leash, but fortunately he ran right back to the cat-room and asked to be let back in.

It’s hard to tell Severus and Onyx apart, but one of them (I think Severus) has learned how to open the cupboard doors (especially the door to the clean clothes). The other one watches and tries to open a door himself but hasn’t quite figured out the trick of it.  Much later in the shift I spotted one of these two (again I think Severus, but it cd have been Onyx) playing with Bingo. The much smaller black cat wd sit down beside Bingo and Bongo’s cage and very slowly slip his paw up into Bongo’s space until Bongo wd notice and swat at it. They might have been kids sharing a back seat on a long car ride.

Of our two newcomers, Lucy Lou is truly beautiful: a grey-orange attention-loving fluff-puff. Don’t think it’ll take long for her to be out and about exploring.

Bolts, by contrast, is very shy, so much so that he was hiding under the blankets. Rather than force him to come out so soon after he’d settled in, I reached in under the blanket to pet him. This seemed to help: he was only half-hidden by the end of our shift. The person who reported that he has a striking difference in his eyes was right: one is yellow and the other darker golden color.
 
Here’s hoping it doesn’t take the newcomers long to fill at ease.

—John R

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