Youngsmile, Day 2.
Joining our household comes with a whole slew of new experiences for a cat, and requires the right cat. Youngsmile completely is the right cat. It’s been an exciting second day for her, and it’s only 2 pm!
I will intersperse my giant amounts of text with some pictures. :)
Today, Youngsmile learned about cat trees (and I actually took decent pictures of her - isn’t she gorgeous?)
She played with toys.
Queen of the cat basket.
Stared thoughtfully out the window.
Played with toys some more!
Then, she got to meet someone else.
Can you guess who? (Hint: Look at her whisker pads.)
Yes, Youngsmile got to meet Tlalli. I always introduce cats to the macaws first because most cats are not stupid. Youngsmile stared at her, whiskers trembling, and then went back to love.
A little while later, she climbed up on the kitchen table, and seriously considered playing with Tlalli’s tail. Tlalli climbed down from the orbit, leaned down at the cat beak first, and Youngsmile sauntered away with the expression of ‘I was never ever going to try anything, honest, and this is completely my idea, and I do not find macaws scary at all.’
Quick side note - cats are extremely dangerous to parrots, and need to be introduced appropriately. If you don’t know what you’re doing, read my zoo safety page for more details.
Back to cat shots!
Less macaw, more love.
Then, she got to meet someone else. Actually, she met Nemo the first time this morning when he barged into the room, and reacted by hissing at him a few times, but no escalation and nothing else. So, later on, we let them both out together.
It’s been pretty simple so far.
Wait until we get to Jelly. Whee.
Our plan for the rest of the introductions is pretty straight forward. Youngsmile will get introduced to Fetch and Macavity, who will likely be the same as Nemo has been.
Then, for the next week to two weeks, she and Jelly will essentially ‘crate and rotate’ with only one girl cat out and the other in the spare room, alternating girl cats.
Once they’re calmer about each other’s smells, we’ll do a slow and supervised introduction.
And of course, we also have dog intros and other parrot intros to do. Should be a fascinating time full of interesting cat behaviour.
And trying to figure out how to stop her from drinking out of my water glass and also figure out how to grow a bigger lap, because it’s already pretty snug with three orientals, and now there’s four. :)
Originally published at Rational Parrot Blog. You can comment here or there.