He is now scent-marking the house, not just me. (Facial scent marks, of course.) I am quite pleased with this development because it means he's claiming the house as his and I desperately want him to be in "charge" of the house when the kittens do come eventually. I'm hoping that if he's comfortable and confident enough here, he won't cede the house to the newcomers and disappear under the bed permanently.
He was definitely the cat on the low end of the ever-shifting flowing hierarchy that cats implement when he was in the shelter, never offering any kind of resistance to anything another cat wanted to do. I want him to be the confident, happy self that I've gotten to know, even when there are other cats here. The fact that they will be young kittens should help, but I'm still glad to see him claiming the house.
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| Tunnel Cat! |
So we play hide and attack around various structures in the living room, including the tunnel you see in the picture. This tunnel has been on the floor for most of the time he's been with me, but only in the past couple weeks has it become a source of major fun.
Now he adores chasing the bird through it. Of course I can't get a wand toy to go "through" the tunnel; I dodge from one end to the other. Apricot is the one that plunges through the tunnel. I've managed to convince him that although he can see through it, for some reason the bird can't see him. So the feathers will be at one end (like you see in the picture) and Apricot will be at the other. I can see his back end quivering with pent up excitement until all the sudden he lets loose and dives through the tunnel at the bird feathers.
He's got that look on his face in the tunnel because I'm taking a picture. And Apricot thinks me and the phone are a very strange thing when I'm holding it at him like that. So I get this look a lot in my photos of him!
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He's taken to hanging out in the kitchen with me when I make supper, and he had been staying with me while I ate. And then he started climbing the kitchen cat tree while I ate, and then started trying to come over to the empty chair between my chair (and me) and the cat tree. But he was doing it the logical way, which was to step the two inches down from the cat tree platform onto the table and walk the edge of it over to me.
I actually trained him to get off the table without ever getting up from my seat, just using my voice and pointing down. The last time he headed toward the table edge I didn't even look up from my bite, just pointed with my free hand down. And he did.
But the time after that he decided to make a weak attempt to jump to the empty chair. As usual he didn't put enough effort into it and his front paws hit the edge of the chair at such an angle that he pushed the chair away from him and fell on the floor, stiff-legged. I think he jarred his shoulders.
In any case, he blamed me for moving the chair until I realized this and apologized (I had to seek him out as he'd left the kitchen in high dudgeon) and while he has stayed during food prep for the last two days, he has left during the eating process instead of hanging around.
I hope he'll go back to hanging around; that was fun.
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The pink room (guest bedroom) is holding more appeal for him. In fact Tuesday he went there to that cat tree and I had to follow him with my book in order to be with. This was something he hadn't realized could be done. I believe he'd gotten the idea I could only read my book in my living room chair. He was quite pleased with the discovery and came down from the cat tree to stretch out on the daybed beside where I was sitting.
Often I can hear him scratching the cat tree's sisal posts in there, sometimes after I go to bed at night!
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There are other changes, less obvious ones. He seems more confident in me and in his relationship to me. I think he's gone with "mama cat" in reference to me; perhaps that decision is behind the new confidence?
He loves to have a good night kiss at night and a goodbye kiss in the morning. Both of these are actually head bumps: I kiss him on top of his head because lips, ew. So he head-bumps me back. Sometimes he does it as I come in for my "head bump" and they become simultaneous. It's sweet except for if the timing is just right (or wrong, depending on your viewpoint), he ends up smashing my lips against my teeth. Ow.
The goodbye kiss in the morning is the change; he had been a little nervous about this one (since I have shoes on and my work clothes on and half the time I have my bags with me) but now it's a definite "thing-I-must-do." The goodnight kiss has been going on ever since he decided to not stay in the bedroom at night.
The other outside noises, like traffic, neighbors, neighbors' dogs, and so on, seem to be bothering him much less now, too. Labor day holiday there was a sharp voiced little dog yapping away several houses down from mine, so not really annoying but definitely there, and Apricot, after making sure it couldn't be seen from the patio doors, just ignored it.
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| Labor Day cat relaxes with me |
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