About two weeks ago, I was in the bathroom fixing my hair when Kurt walked in the door after his final class at the college. He held in his arms a screaming kitten that he rescued from a storm drain -- a tiny black and white guy that had a huge lung capacity. This boy is LOUD. We gave him some canned cat food, and he was so hungry that he cried as he ate.
The vet ran him through all sorts of mobility tests, and told us that our new baby was about five weeks old. He had no worms, no diseases, and just a few fleas. So we brought him home and attempted to introduce him to Karla.
I know you're supposed to quarantine the cats when you bring one home, have one in one room and one in another and let them slowly get to know one another. But in a one-bedroom apartment, it's not that easy. I couldn't shut Karla in the bedroom because then the dog couldn't get in to the water bowl -- plus if our animals get shut into a room that we're not in, destruction usually follows.
Karla spent the first two days on the seat of one our dining room chairs, refusing to come into the living room at all because HE was there. Storm, the baby, ignored her and tried to get Koolit to play with him. Koolit would tolerate Storm for a minute or so, then get up and move to another area of the floor to lay down. If Storm went into the dining area, Karla would growl way deep in her throat and hiss at him. I'll have to say this for him, he never let it get to him. He's a brave little baby.
Now the two of them play pretty frequently. Karla doesn't think Storm keeps himself clean enough, which I guess is true because every time Storm tries to bathe himself, he gets distracted by something and has to go investigate. So Karla holds him down by force and cleans him herself. Storm likes to antagonize Karla by biting at her and hitting her with his paw, but Karla soon lays down the law and gets him back. She is, of course, twelve pounds more than he is. The baby is only one pound!
So Kurt and I sit and watch our animals before we go to bed. They're so funny!! If Karla starts to hurt Storm, then Koolit lumbers up from his spot on the floor and pads over to where the two are playing to warn Karla that she'd better not injure the little guy. And Storm's got the whole climbing thing down, so he can get up on top of the cat condos and look down on everything. He's also not afraid to leap from these heights, although every time he does it Kurt's afraid he's going to get hurt.
I have to stop acquiring animals, though. At least until I have a house -- which should be soon. YAY!!!