humans are weird. cats are awesome (long gyofb new kitty update) →[More:]

Our new kitty appears to be calming down, is hiding less, and seems to be developing into Super Awesome Housecat. The mister approved Marlowe as his name, so we'll head over to Petco this weekend and get a tag made. I also want to get him microchipped, even though the goal is to keep him indoors.

A neighbour who's a cat fancier is convinced he is either a Ragdoll or Ragdoll mix, a breed I'd never even heard of before. He certainly seems to have the right personality and temperament. He doesn't mind being handled, brushed, combed or hauled around like a big fuzzy bag of purring goo. The friend who found the kittens did say all four had similar looking coats, tho colourpoint cats are difficult to tell what they'll look like as adults. It does strike me as odd that someone would dump what appear to have been well-bred kittens, but they never found the mother, so who knows. At least they have all been taken in; Marlowe is the last sibling from the litter to have found a permanent home.

Despite starting life orphaned under a dumpster, then spending nearly a year in a foster home with a lot of pets, people, ruckus and very little bandwidth for him, he seems well adjusted. He is scrupulously tidy, despite that he does shed that silky white hair everywhere (yes you'd better believe I'm getting a Furminator!). His foster folks gave us his litterbox, and he's been aces with that so far.

His interactive style tends to be a bit needy, but I don't much mind having Underfoot Cat since he doesn't get super obnoxious about it. He still tends to hide a fair amount, either under our bed, or under the futon, but I'm starting to think that it's not so much shyness/relocation stress, as more of a game he's learning to play with his apes. He seems pretty darned smart for a cat. He will typically "hide" (in one of his two favourite spots) until one of us decides to go find him, and with just a little coaxing and offers of petting, he'll come right out and be super sociable and affectionate. He **LOVES** to be petted. Loves. I've never seen a cat go so ecstatic about being petted. He purrs like a motorboat, flops down, rolls over and gets this blissed-out expression like your fingers are high quality kitty MDMA. He really enjoys the all-over scrubby-style petting too, not just skritching. He doesn't seem to be a lap cat, at least not yet, but he does like to lie next to us on the futon or in the big computer room armchair and make biscuits while we stroke or brush him. He is also very polite, and has not yet so much as exposed a claw to either of us, despite all the weirdness of being re-homed. When he's frightened or stressed out (default state the first day he arrived, poor guy), he will either hide or just go kinda limp/catatonic (heh). When he went to the vet for his vax boosters, he never budged, not even when they jabbed him. This is why the neighbour insists he's a Ragdoll; their near total lack of panic reflex / defensiveness is supposed to be their signal trait, apart from the colour.

The mister, despite being a cat lover, has dictated a "no cats on the bed" policy, and I'm okay with that, so no cats on the bed it is. The first night Marlowe was in the house, he was extremely active all night, which we expected, and he must have jumped up on the bed at least a half dozen times during his rounds. We diligently shooed him off each time. He expressed his disdain for our policies by MROWL-ing woefully as he stalked about the house, which we patiently ignored (hey, human kids are worse, right?). I removed his collar bell the next day at the first opportunity, so that it wouldn't annoy him OR us anymore at night (foster folks belled him for... what reason? he's never been an outdoor kitty, and both of our houses are tiny single story ranches, but whatever). The next night, he scampered into the bedroom and onto the bed the moment we shut off the lights. Off we shooed him, and off he sulked, and he hasn't attempted to jump on the bed since then (3 days now). Time will tell whether he trains us, or we train him :)

I usually get up between 5:45 and 6 AM to go run and then get ready for work. The first couple of nights there was random MROWL-ing at the usual inappropriate oh-god-o'clock hours that all cats seem to think are Concert Hour, which we patiently ignored. He's quieted down more each night, and has restrained the opera to later and later each morning, approaching when my alarm goes off. This morning he actually stayed quiet until I got up, then staged a full chorus yowl-a-thon about the complete lack of food in his bowl (so sad), and cruel ape that I am, I patiently ignored the drama and dodged all the leg-weaving pathos while I put contacts in, got dressed to go run, made tea for the mister, and then fed him just before I headed out the door. I'm hoping to prevent him from being a yowly pest the instant we wake up; again time will tell.

Knowing what I do about young male cats, I think one of the biggest challenges for us will be to keep him from getting bored and going on destructo-raids or being generally neurotic, tho so far he's shown no inclination to scratch, maim or jump on things. Last night we all had an extended aerobic session with the laser pointer, which he absolutely loves. He's a bit meh about toy mousie but will play with it as long as one of us tosses it for him, so I'm thinking maybe mousie will go on a string or something. He seems more afraid of boxes than he is of vacuum cleaners, which he mostly seems to ignore, despite the mister and I going all VACUUMAGEDDON last night by vacuuming the entire house in stereo with both the upright and the shop vac (longhaired kitty with hidey tendencies has now shown us where all our dustbunnies live, ew :P) I'm going to get him one of those feathery "cat fishing poles", and we are going to find/build him a kitty tree, too. Mr lfr is utter gonzo on the idea of teaching him to walk on a lead, which shouldn't be too difficult since this kitty seems to be both intelligent and reward-motivated. I've also known several leash-trained kitties and it wasn't THAT hard.

Anybunny have other ideas for toys and activities we should try with this guy? I've lived with Felis catus throughout my life, but it's been a couple decades since I've offically been owned by one :)

I did indeed shoot some new pics of him this morning with the good camera, but of course he was more interested in being petted than having his picture taken, so we'll have to see how they turned out.