3 V's: Bringing Home Mittens

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Bringing Home Mittens

As a lot of you know, my parents kindly fostered Mittens from the end of May through mid February as we could no longer have her at our apartment, so when it came time to find a place in MO we knew we had to find a place that loved cats just as much as we do. We got settled in our townhouse, and a week later we drove up to my parents' house to bring home the princess. I know Mittens will forever be grateful to her grandparents and is thankful for the time to get to know them so well. ;) Anyway, bringing her home was traumatic just as we had anticipated. Thankfully, I was able to pick her up and put her in the carrier just fine. She sat inside the carrier which was on my lap for the 50 minute drive back to our townhouse. She was pretty quiet and sat still. When we got home we unzipped the carrier, but she stayed in it for about 10 minutes before getting out. Looking back, and as a note for the next time we move, we should have taken her to the bedroom with the door shut first and let her get acclimated in there for 24 hours before releasing her into the whole house. When you think about it, when an indoor house cat moves to a new home her whole WORLD is changing. Everything she experiences happens inside of the house, so not to be dramatic (or to be dramatic), it would be like you moving to Mars.

She spent the first two days sniffing EVERYTHING - every last fiber of carpet, the base boards, our furniture, the walls. We have one connecting neighbor and she has two cats, so we were kind of wondering if Mittens could smell the other cats, but since she couldn't see them it was throwing her off. She still sniffs the adjoining wall/base board a lot. She slept under the bed the first night, and the next day she spent about seven hours straight under the bed without moving a muscle. It was heartbreaking. She wasn't eating or drinking, but thankfully, she was using the litter box just fine and never had an accident. We originally had the litter box on the tile floor in the half bath, but the princess wouldn't dare walk across the freezing tile floor, so the box is now on the carpet in the corner of our bedroom. Ugh. It's Mittens world, and we're just living in it.

After two days she started eating her food at night while we were asleep, so it was progress. I had been convinced she was going to starve herself to death because she's just that stubborn. Robert assured me that she would eat once she got hungry enough. What do you know, he was right. After three of four days of living here she became much more normal. She would let us brush and pet her, she started playing with her toys and laser and sprinting up and down the stairs (she's never had stairs before), and she ate and drank in public.

She doesn't mind when I play the piano, but when Robert play the guitar she runs for the hills.

She finally got brave enough to hop up on the couch. She has a fear of couches as that's where the nail clipping is done.

She has a tough life.

We've had her for about 15 days now, and she's totally back to normal. Of course, her normal is still unique. She has no desire to sit on my lap or let me pick her up, but she shows she cares by sitting in the seat next to me. She loves sitting on the guest bed and soaking up some rays in the day. That's also her go to spot at night because she can watch the street lights out the double window. There's a stray cat that lurks around the parking lot at night, and Mitts watches it to let it know that she rules the hood. She knows when it's time for Robert and me to go to bed so she'll sit at the top of the stairs and wait for us. When we start to walk up the stairs she sprints to our room and hops on the bed for her nightly scratching before we hit the hay. She has a new hiding spot - under the piano. She can't see us, but we can still see her, so it's pretty funny. We also got a new side table and put her blanket under it in attempts to reclaim our chair, and she seems to like it. She took a nap under there for an hour and a half last night. She still enjoys being mischievous - standing on the piano bench, lurking around the kitchen table and chairs, hoping up on the dresser. I caught her standing on the toilet seat and drinking from it, so we're making an effort to close the lids now.