Apricot is, above all else, a gentle cat. He is the last cat who should be an outdoor cat, fending for himself, but that's how he was born and grew up. When he was finally caught and taken to a shelter, it was an extremely good thing he was taken to a humane society shelter where he could live as long as he needed to. Since he is terrified of humans he was not very adoptable, despite being a very pretty cat.
But I didn't behave like any human he'd ever encountered. When I interacted with him in the beginning, I used a lot of cat body language adapted for the restrictions of a human body. I was slow and quiet and gentle.
He responded to this by concluding I must be a giant deformed cat, and therefore, I was okay to be around.
I really don't know if there are many people he would have been happy with, but he's happy in my house. I still use cat body language, and I still move slowly and carefully around him, but less so for each, as he's gotten more and more used to me.
He loves his new baby brothers, Colby and Thimble, and he's learning so much from them.
For instance: when I make my bed, I rotate the mattress (just rotate, not flip). I got tired of my mattresses wearing out so quickly, so I decided to rotate it often, and when making the bed is the perfect time. This means that, although the mattress never fully leaves the box spring, part of it does swing out over the floor as I'm walking around the bed, dragging the mattress with me. Apricot always found this terrifying and wouldn't even stay in the room.
Since the kittens have come, who find this whole process fascinating, Apricot has stayed closer and closer. First he just stayed in the hallway where he could watch through the open door. (It's a small bedroom, for a master bedroom, and a queen sized bed, so most of the bedroom consists of the bed.) Then he came in and would leave halfway through the rotation. I start from the far side and move around to the door side of the room, so he'd leave as the majority of the mattress came toward him.
Last week he stayed in the room the whole time, over against the closet edge. This week he seems to have thrown caution to the wind, because not only did he stay in the bedroom the entire time, he stayed underfoot. I had to step over him (very carefully and slowly) as I was dragging the mattress around. This meant the mattress was in motion over top of where he was! And he just stayed there. (I am baffled.)
The kittens usually are playing on the cat stairs, because the stairs are in a different location (against the wall instead of against the bed) and have the comforter and blanket draped over them, thus making ambush places.
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| Last December. Apricot prefers being beside me rather than on my lap. |
Another thing he learned from the kittens was that human laps are fun and good to sleep on. Before they came, I had managed to get him to spend thirty seconds or so on my lap at a time. Once or twice it lasted longer, even five or ten minutes.
Now mind you, I never make him do anything. I rarely carry him, as it scares him, and so most of the time I coax him to come where I want him to be by holding my hand out at petting level and using my voice to ask him to come over. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't, but more often than not he'll come to me. (I find this behavior quite wonderful and it boosts my self-esteem no end!)
So those times on my lap were from me coaxing him, never holding him in place, and just petting him and trying to make being there a pleasant experience. But he was never sure of his footing, as my muscles slide over my leg bones most distressingly, and forget about the clothing slippage!
However, he observed the kittens, who sprawl all over me with complete abandon, and have no sense of a proper lap. They'll curl up on me when I'm cross-legged, sitting on the floor with my knees up, sitting with my legs bent beside me, as well as the proper legs together and forward.
Much to my surprise, he has started wanting to be on my lap, without any coaxing or invitation from me. He'll come over and look disappointed when my lap is occupied by someone else! And while he always tests his footing for each step, he will now relax on my lap instead of sitting stiff and guarded, and he's even fallen completely asleep many times.
How far he's come from the cat who wouldn't eat if I was closer than six feet away. Now he keeps eating even if I stand over him on my hands and knees and kiss his head. He does pause to return the head bump!
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| Before the kittens came sometimes he'd fall asleep during Apricot Cuddles. |
His special thing with me is "Apricot Cuddles" when I come home from anything other than my morning walk. He hangs out in the kitchen while I change out of my shoes into my slippers (my feet get cold easily) and in the winter, while I get my hands damp. And then I sit down with my back to the pantry door, and he rushes over and comes very close indeed and presses into me (how hard depends on how long I've been gone and how much he missed me).
Since he didn't like laps I had been doing this with my legs at a 90 degree angle. Now I'm stuck with that because it's part of the ritual. Cats love ritual and you are not allowed to change it. Apricot barely let me change it to include damp hands, and that was only because he didn't particularly like being shocked by the static electricity any more than I did once the air dried out in the winter. I've only had him since last summer, so this is our first winter together.
But since Apricot's been with me longer than the kittens by a good six months, and he was an only-cat during that time, we have other special things. Upside-down kitty is one of them, where I'm bent over at the waist to untie my shoes and I pet him during this. Thimble likes to be an upside-down kitty too.
Apricot doesn't like conflict, and will back off if Thimble gets in the way. However, he really likes upside-down kitty, and he figured out that Thimble can only be on one side of me at a time. So he just goes on the other side. This means I have to make sure I don't stand too close to the door when I'm untying my shoes, so that there's room for a cat on each side. I also have to make sure I actually bother to untie my shoes, as sometimes my hands are both busy and I might forget. (Early morning after my walk and late afternoon after a long day at work are not particularly good times to be trying to remember petty details.)
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| Apricot is not particularly pleased by his bunkmate. Apricot was there first ... |
Another special Apricot thing that he came up with on his own is the daily supper sniff. He'll come to the right side of my chair when I sit down to eat my supper. He'll sit down on the floor and look up at me expectantly. I am supposed to get a small portion of my supper on my finger and offer it to him. He doesn't want to eat it. He wants to know what it is.
I swear, if I have something five days in a row, which I do sometimes, I get this look from him, as if to say, "Again? Your meals are not very interesting!" (Oddly, he doesn't mind eating the same food all the time. He just seems to mind if I eat the same food all the time.)
Colby and especially Thimble were, and are, baffled by this. They think he should at least taste it. Thimble tried for a few days to get in the way and lick it off my finger, but I've decided, given that they are allowed on the table, that they don't get food from the table, ever. So I wouldn't let him, and he's gone back to watching Apricot do his dinner sniff moment with a very puzzled expression.
After Apricot sees what I'm having for dinner, he leaves to do other things. I've actually started saying, "This is what I'm having for supper" as I offer him my finger to sniff with the food bit on it. Sometimes, when I'm not having anything that lends itself to staying on a finger well, the part he gets to sniff is only part of supper. (A deli meat sandwich is like that. The only thing I can get to stay on the finger is the mayo I put on the bread!)
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| One of the new wand toys. Which is an old toy I found in a closet. It appears to be one of Apricot's favorites. |
Apricot really does not like conflict, and when we play with the wand toy in the evenings, he will usually participate but only when the other two aren't currently playing with it. Sometimes they both have to take a break at the same time, and then he'll jump in. I do try to engage all three of them, but I don't worry too much about it.
That's because the wand toy playtime is from before the kittens came, and it's another special thing that's just for me and Apricot. While the kittens are included initially, once they finally start winding down, I shut them in the nursery and then Apricot and I will play with the wand toy, just us two.
I got more wand toys than just the Bird one, and that seems to make playtime more fun for everyone.
Apricot will have seemed very sedate and cautious while the kittens were playing. He'll grab the toy if it comes near him, and will sometimes run after it, but he won't go up the cat trees after it (that's Colby's thing) and he won't tear after it at high speed. You'd think he wasn't all that interested.
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| This wand toy can occupy two cats at the same time! |
Until you put the kittens in the nursery. Then Apricot lets loose and you see he's just been bottling up all that energy, waiting until now. It's like when you get stuck behind traffic going really really slow, and finally you get to a place you can pass them and/or get on a high-speed road, and you just have to go zoom because you've been patient for so long and all that energy is wound up inside, and you've got to release it. That's how Apricot plays once the other two are taken out of the equation.
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| Apricot is a bookish sort of cat. |
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