Gwnewch y pethau bychain

Fighting the Loneliness

Our cat Dayna has always been a bit high strung and neurotic, but she had been getting increasingly clingy and needy with her requests for attention. We finally decided that she’s probably lonely from not having other cats around (something she had for the first five years of her life). So Saturday morning, kitanzi and I went down to The Cat Clinic of Roswell to see what they had available for adoption.

We arrived at the clinic at about noon, and told them why we’d came. They were delighted to see us, and immediately had us wash our hands so we could go and pet the various cats in the adoption room while we filled out the paperwork. The questionnaire they provide to adopters is quite extensive…they are pretty serious about not just getting the cats into homes but into good homes where they will be well provided for. We ooohed and ahhed over the various cats who were sunning themselves while I filled out the forms.

Once that was done, a very nice lady came out to go over the questionnaire with us, and ask us a lot of questions about ourselves, our current cat, our home environment and so forth. As it went on, i found myself more and more wanting to ensure that I lived up to their standards. I think that this is a good thing, overall. There’s little point in putting the cat into a home that will abandon it again in 2-3 years.

We then got a tour of the back, where even more cats were prowling around waiting for someone to come and give them a good home. One of the other really nice things the clinic (who is closely partnered with Good Mews, a local no-kill cat shelter) does is actually listen to the prospective new owners wants for a pet, and then try to match them up with a cat that will suit them personality wise. In our case, one of the things we wanted to make sure is that we didn’t end up with a cat who would intimidate Dayna, who isn’t a very large cat and was at one time the smallest animal in the house. The first cat they showed us was Nell, an adorable white cat who has soft plush fur and a very sweet disposition. Nell is one of the favourites of the staff, and they really want to see her in a good home. The only possible complication was that she had come in with another cat, and she wasn’t sure if they wanted to separate them. They generally try to adopt out cats with strong pair-bonds formed together. These two cats had originally been adopted from this very shelter, and then given up when the owners moved out of state and couldn’t be bothered to look for a pet-friendly apartment. They decided however, that they would allow her to go to a home without him because he had been a bit of a bully to her, and they figured she’d be better off in a home where she wasn’t being bullied by another cat.

We looked at some other cats, and desperately wanted to take them all home, but we eventually came back around to Nell. So we said we’d take her, and everyone was excited and they told us to come back on Monday to fill out the paperwork and we could take her home. (The delay was because (a) they close at 2pm on Saturday and thus there wasn’t time to do all the paperwork and (b) they had some medical things to do with her that were scheduled before they let her go).

I drove down today at 2pm with an empty carrier, and filled out a bunch of forms and spoke at length with the staff’s animal behaviourist about helping the new cat adapt to the new surrounds, and then drove home with her. She’s spent most of the afternoon hiding (Dayna is being segregated into the other room.

Here’s a couple of pictures of Nell. (I haven’t decided yet if we want to keep that name or not. We may end up doing so out of default, though I admit I’m not especially enamoured of it for the cat):

Getting used to new surroundings:

Ah, here’s a good place to hide!

More pictures can be found on my pictures page

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20 Comments

  1. Are they as Yin and Yang as they look?

    • Hard to know. We haven’t let them spend much time together yet, so we haven’t yet seen how their personalities mesh. 🙂

      • I just noticed in going to the Cat Clinic page, through your link, that they still have Nell and Theo up as the Pick of the litter. 🙂 They’ll have to update that one soon. (And I was responding to Dave’s yin/yang exactly opposite how you did because I was picking on the word “look”, if you’re curious. 😉 )

    • Absolutely. Dayna has a few stray white hairs but you don’t notice them, and Nell’s as pure white as they come. We didn’t plan that, though. 🙂

  2. Personally, I’d rename her Dinah. White cat. Alice. You know.

    Dayna. Dinah. Might be too confusing, though.

    • If the black one is Dayna, the white should be Neiya, Nightna, Neina, or something of that ilk.

  3. so now you have a cat for every type of color. say hello to white hairs all over your black tshirts =)

    she looks like Snowball, the neighborhood cat who loved to perch on shoulders and under cars. (she actually rode under the wheel well to the grocery once)

  4. Awwwww! She looks just like our Alanis, who is also pure white. We also have an all-black cat named Bagheera. Now you just have to get a fat calico and we’ll have matching kitties. Weeeeee! Good luck with your new friend!

  5. What a sweetie! 😀

  6. Aww. She’s adorable!

  7. wonderful…I worked with Good Mews when I lived in Atlanta; used to help run their adoption days at the PetSmart on Ponce, I did an older version of their website (with the g logo, making a little cat-tail twitch at it’s very end), and I also had the official volunteer title of “Kitten Kuddler”. Ahem. Good position, but I hate the spelling 😉

    I need to stay away from adoption pushes, though. I can’t spend a day with cats and not take one home, if they’re available to me…..

    • I need to stay away from adoption pushes, though. I can’t spend a day with cats and not take one home, if they’re available to me…..

      I know just what you mean. It was really hard NOT to say “Yes, we’ll take that one….and that one….and this one is so cute….and isn’t that one adorable….”

  8. Aw, how cute!

    Erik used to like to climb behind books, too, when he was smaller. Just be glad she’s not pushing them out to make more room to nap. 🙂

  9. She looks a little uncertain of her new home, but not cowed, she’ll get used to it. Here’s hoping that she & Dayna like each other and will be friends and get along well and that being with each other will help each over their lonelinss and missing cat-friends.

    *hugs* & scritches to both felines

  10. Oh, she is so cute! I like the yin/yang comments, you couldn’t have got any more opposite to Dayna. Nell is a bit of a naf name, though!

  11. The White Cat

    That picture of her hiding behind the books reminded me of the Old Irish poem Pangur Bán… 😉

    See this translation, this with the original and a translation, and the original manuscript at Potsdam University (the manuscript page itself).

  12. HEEE!!! KITTY!!!

    Oh, that picture behind the books is impossibly adorable.

  13. Awww… She’s a darling. And you’ve got me cursing my cat allergy again… Hope she and Dayna get along, and Dayna doesn’t get the older-sibling-when-new-baby-arrives blues…

  14. I just came back to this post to show the picture of your kitty hiding on the shelf (I love that picture!) and her reaction was: “Ooh! Gurps Discworld… Crosstime… umm… Sorry.”

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