Introducing Apricot Marmalade (Part II)

June 9, 2014

I drove up Saturday afternoon (the 7th of June)  and spent about two hours with him. By the time I left, he was all sprawled out asleep, with one paw out (just like Pippin). It made me wistful, though, not stunned grieving again.

Here he is, all sprawled out asleep

He lives in a relatively large room (about half the size of my small bedrooms, which is large for a shelter) with other cats. He was given a large cage by himself, but he didn't like it, so they put him back in the cat room. He never defends himself against the other cats if they pick on him, but mostly if a cat keeps picking on him the shelter staff remove that cat, and the other cats pick on each other for fun, but not for serious fights, and leave him alone.

I think he wanted to be with the other cats because when people came to look at them and adopt them, he could use the other cats as camouflage and hide behind them. 

But anyway, so I spent about two hours getting acquainted. Lynn was astonished at how fast he took to me (personally I thought I wasn't getting anywhere much). And when she saw him sleeping like this, she told me that he never sleeps sprawled out like that; he is always guarded, even in sleep.

I give full credit to The Way of Cats for helping me make friends (or at least, friendly acquaintances) with him. I gave him cat kisses (slow blinks where you close your eyes for several seconds while you're looking at him. Try it with your cat. After a bit, he or she will slow-blink back at you. It's an affection move for them). And I used the Fist of Friendship, which is where you extend your hand with your fingers curled in toward your palm, so that cat knows you're not going to grab at him and can sniff you with confidence. 

I also used some of the things that Pippin taught me, that are unconsciously automatic now. I was talking to the shelter director (I didn't know he was the director at the time, he was just a guy that had been working the desk that came in to chat with me) and not honestly paying much attention to my hand and what it was doing with Apricot. By this point Apricot was letting me pet him. 

The first hour we spent in slow motion chase. I would give cat kisses and offer sniffs of my hand, and Apricot would allow a few moments of head scritching or shoulder petting, and then he'd get uncomfortable, get up, and go to the opposite side of the room. I'd stay put for a while, then move slowly across the room, still talking to him. Rinse and repeat. Multiple times. But by the time I was talking to the director, Apricot was staying put while I petted.

Only my hand wasn't really doing anything I was deliberately thinking about. I was talking, distracted, and so my petting was just responding to what the kitty furry body under it did. And also "bugging" which is me trying for chest scratches or petting a paw with one finger. The chest scratches, if the cat rolls into it, then move into tentative tummy scratches. If the cat moves away, the hand stops trying for the tummy and retreats to the side or even back, depending on the abruptness of the movement.

And that is how I ended up with Apricot sprawled out, tummy exposed, mostly asleep. And everyone who knew Apricot quite amazed at my progress with him.

I still wasn't sure. I still wanted my kittens, which meant three cats now. Apricot granted was small, and unlikely to get a bigger frame although he could put weight on, so he wouldn't take up much space. And he's a gamma cat, so he's likely to take up even less space than you'd think, seeing as being quiet and watching the leaves blow in the wind beyond the window is his idea of an exciting afternoon.

So I left him at the shelter and went home Saturday to my friend's birthday party, where I refrained from saying anything about him so the birthday party would remain about the birthday girl, and not my indecision over yet another cat. (Yeah, Max is still a sore point with me. I don't think he is with anyone else, but I still feel guilty about him. Even though he's having such great fun with his new family.)