Chloe

J is the neighborhood critter wrangler. He knows every cat and every dog and their names and to whom they belong. Late in September, he noticed a new cat in the neighborhood. A pretty little orange and white cat with a white diamond on her back and no collar. She was small, still in late kittenhood, we thought. We both started feeding her. J would play with her and she came running whenever he was around. I didn't like the idea of a young unclaimed cat with no shots, not spayed and with no one to look out for her, so I decided to take her to the vet. First, J and I checked to make sure she didn't below to anyone; we found out we weren't the only ones feeding her but no one claimed her.

I made an appointment at the Humane Society to get her checked out. On the appointed day, we set about trying to get her into the cat carrier. She is a strong and single minded beastie. I called the Humane Society and got another appointment. This time, J came armed with a heavy bath towel which he wrapped her in and then stuffed her into the carrier. She was not pleased but didn't complain.

The vet said she weighed 6 lbs. but that she is not a kitten. She is at least a year old. Poor baby. She was so scrawny! She got some shots and some flea medicine and we took her home. I was not crazy about having her in the house until the flea medicine did its job so J took her for the night. The original plan was to give her to a friend who was looking for a cat but after a night of bonding, J really wanted to keep her. Since his house already has 4 cats, I agreed to keep her. We consider it joint custody. I named her Chloe.

I kept her shut in my bedroom for a few days so that we could gradually introduce her to Puddin', my long-haired cat, and Bingo, my very large dog. Chloe's life on the street made her immediately defensive. She hissed and growled at everyone. And complain! My is she talkative! J says she is not complaining, that's just the way she talks but I know bitching when I hear it.

At her follow-up vet visit, she weighed 7.5 lbs. She gained 1.5 lbs in 3 weeks! She got the rest of her shots and we set up the appointment to get her spayed.

Now, after a month, she has full run of the house. She loves the basement; she loves the little rug-covered-stool-with-a-hole-in-it-cat-house; she prefers dry cat food; she loves to sit a window, any window, and will climb behind any blinds. She is small enough to fit on the narrow window sills. But she never goes near Puddin's fleece covered window seat. She knows sacred territory when she sees it. Her living room perch is on the back of my wing-backed chair. She wrestles with the little feathered kitten toy and pops catnip flavored bubbles that I blow.

The balance of power in the house is still in question. Bingo wants to play with her but, like Puddin', she will have none of it. J swears he saw Puddin' and Chloe take turns chasing each other and I am inclined to believe him. She doesn't growl and hiss near as much as she first did. She is not cuddly. She doesn't like to be picked up and complains when you do but lets you get away with it.

And she wants to go outside. Boy, does she want to go outside. I took her out one day, supervised her play and took her back inside after a little while. The next day, J did the same. The day after that, she paced around the house all day saying, "Can I go out? Let me out! I wanna go out!" If she heard the door open she ran to see if she could get out. Then, as I was coming back in the house after saying goodbye to a visitor, she shot through the door. My inclination was "she knows where her food bowl is" and to let her ask to come back in but I knew that J would think otherwise. I called him and he sighed deeply and started looking for her. He eventually found her cornered by Skunky, our neighborhood bunny-killer-cat. Now, I shut her in my bedroom when I want to leave so that we don't have a repeat performance.

Friday, the day after tomorrow, is her surgery day. All the cats I've ever had were already fixed when I got them so I don't know what to expect. And will the surgery change her personality? I'll keep you posted.