Monday, September 15, 2008

Lucille 8.4lbs

So, Lucille is about 17 months old now and weighs about 8.4 lbs.

She's all healed up from the surgery. Often, during the evenings if I'm reading on the couch, she'll come and sit on my lap and nuzzle for scratching.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 1:53 PM (0 comments)

Monday, June 23, 2008

Lucille's recovery

Got a big piece of good news this afternoon. When the vets operated on Lucille, they found it that the lump was nothing more then a bit of fat protruding through a hernia in the abdominal wall. Apparently, whoever did the spaying operation last October, did not close it up correctly.

So, no cancern, no lumps, just an easily fixable issue that required a few stitches. It was important that it be fixed, because it could have gotten worse.

Of course, all this means a kitty with a shaved belly and the joy of wearing an elizabethan collar for most of the week. She's still getting used to that collar, but we're getting there. I fed her a bit of dinner earlier (sweetened with a bit of dried fish flakes) and she's spent about two hours in my lap so far, sleeping.

I'll have to give her a bit of a scrubdown with a washcloth and towel twice a day, because she can't bathe herself at the moment. She was well-behaved at the vet, letting them carry her around. She was completely wide-eyed, but mostly calm. Suffering through it all without complaint.

They even managed to trim all of her claws before they took her in for her operation (and she put up with it). So I guess I'll have to try my luck. I've been massaging her front paws for a few months now, and she's been letting me hold them longer and longer, but I didn't press the issue long enough to trim them.

Fortunately, I spent most of the day in the office, so I should be good to work from home the rest of the week.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 11:00 PM (0 comments)

Friday, June 20, 2008

Lucille's Lump

Got a bit of bad news concerning Lucille in the past few weeks. A week or three ago, I noticed a strange lump on her belly when I was petting her and checking for such things. (It took me a few months for her to consent to being touched anywhere other then her back, now she lets me pet her pretty much everywhere.)

From re-reading my cat care books, this could be anything from a benign tissue growth up to and including mammary cancer. It's inside of her right rear leg, right near one of her nipples, so I took her to see the vet yesterday. So I've been stressed all week and not sleeping well. On top of working 60+ hour weeks, plus side work, plus the normal day to day stuff, this wasn't a good time.

She was not happy about being put in the cat carrier! Round one went in her favor as she freaked out at the last second and raked me pretty badly as she made her escape. After washing out my wounds, we went for round 2. While she didn't growl or spit, she was meowing at me in a very complaining manner. I finally got a hand underneath her with the other on her scruff and she then went meekly into the carrier on the second try.

I didn't know what to expect when we got to the vet. Would she turn into a hellion with teeth and claws everywhere? Given that she was a feral cat as a kitten, there was a strong possibility of that. Or maybe she would struggly wildly. So I warned the vet and he had a nurse come in to assist. We just cracked open the cat carrier, slipped a rope around her neck, and the nurse picked her up while I moved the carrier out of the way.

I was surprised when she didn't cry at all, but just went into a little tense ball of unease. Tail curled under the belly, ears about halfway down, but no vocalizations or struggle. She wasn't thrilled by the situation, but wasn't totally panicked either. The nurse didn't have to do much more then keep her flat against the table with a hand on the scruff of her neck.

So they poked and prodded her, but they couldn't find the lump at first. So I had to show him exactly where it was (it's roughly grape sized). At first, he wanted me to just keep an eye on it, but I convinced him to at least draw a needle sample for analysis.

They took her into the back room for that, then the nurse brought her back. While we were waiting for the vet, I got out her brush and gave her a few strokes. That got her to purr a little bit.

The other (elder) vet came in, and they both poked and prodded her for a bit. While the mass is free moving, they felt that because of its proximity to mammary tissue, the fact that she may have gone into heat once before being fixed, and that it may be connected to the mammary glands that it's best to take it out. While mammary cancer is unlikely in a young cat, it's not unheard of. It's also extremely nasty (as in survival time measured in months).

Now, Lucille doesn't show any signs of ill health (other then a bit of gingevitis around the teeth). She's still bright eyed, perky ears, and runs around like a young cat would. She loves to be brushed and petted, and will pull your hands or the brush towards her with her paw for more.

So I'm giving her lots of extra attention this weekend before she goes into surgery on Monday morning. She finally forgave me for the vet trip after about 6 hours of hiding under the bed yesterday. Hopefully, I'll have better news when I pick her back up from the vet on Monday evening.

I'm not sure what the surgery will cost, but my pet insurance should pay about 80% of it. So I'm not overly worried about that. Or at least, I don't have to worry about not being able to afford the surgery. If there's going to be chemo/radiation treatments, then it's possible that I'll have to make a hard decision (my level of insurance probably won't pay for that).

The office visit was only $55, which is a very reasonable price. They didn't charge me for the needle sample since I'm going to be bringing her back for full surgery anyway.

Worst case, if it's mammary cancer, I'll probably end up just monitoring her health. If she starts to get ill and in a good bit of pain, then I would choose to put her down.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 9:52 AM (0 comments)

Friday, May 30, 2008

Ewwwwwww, hairball!

Blech, Lucille's first hairball issue. All over her window seat and the desk area behind my monitors. I've apparently been remiss about brushing her at least once a week...

Still, AFAIK, that's the first mess that she's made.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 1:16 PM (0 comments)

Monday, April 07, 2008

Day in the life with Lucille

My day usually starts around 6am. That's when Lucille comes looking for breakfast. With a little mew, she'll jump up on the bed. If I happen to be facing in her direction, she'll start purring. Then comes the nuzzling and the licking of my hands and fingers. It's an interesting way to wake up. If I happen to be facing the other way, she'll cry a bit before clambering over to the other side. Either way, there's a good bit of purring and nuzzling involved.

She'll generally keep it up for a few minutes until I either wake up or until I pet her. Depending on how hungry she is, she may give up and go play for a few minutes before coming back, or she may stack around and keep licking me until I get up. It's a behavior that I don't mind reinforcing, because she's close enough to pet. If she was out in the hallway, wailing away, it would be more difficult to deal with.

When it looks like I'm getting up, she'll run to the end of the bed by the door. She's learned to stop and look back to see whether I was really getting up. Once I'm up and moving, the race to the kitchen has started. I'll put the kettle on, and pop her food into the microwave (if it's leftovers from the previous evening); then go clean the litterbox. Once the microwaved dish (only 10 seconds) has cooled, I'll put it down and then fix my breakfast.

(She generally eats about 1/2 of a 3.0 oz can at a go right now. And I'll usually put another 1/4 can down about 30 minutes later if she eats the first 1/2 can. If I'm going into the office, then I put the last 1/4 down before leaving. Still feeding her kitten food for another few weeks. At least she's now willing to eat the canned food without my having to grind up the dry food and mix it in.)

...

She loves to be brushed now. I have a wire brush (with the large flat head with bent thin wire bristles) and a flea comb (metal with close together straight tines). If I'm standing by the cat tree in my office, and scratch along the wire bristles, she'll generally come running to the top of the tree for brushing. That's a handy behavior to have if I ever have to give her medication down the road.

I generally try to brush long enough to fill the bristle brush once with loose hair. Usually that's a bundle about the size of a ping pong ball. By doing that a few times per week (as often as I feel the need for a short stress break), I'm greatly reducing the chance that she'll have to cough up a hairball.

So I think we're well past the point where she's afraid to be touched. She'll even put up with petting of her belly, but I don't push my luck. Very rarely, she'll put her teeth on my hand as a warning. Usually, it's because she's become over stimulated rather then out of fear.

But I still take every chance while she's up on the tree, where she's happy, to touch her legs, look in her ears, look at her claws (including holding the paws) and generally manipulate her body a bit. She'll let me hold the rear paws quite a bit and we're still getting better about the front paws (not there yet).

(Lucille's weight is still around 7.8 lbs.)

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 5:23 PM (0 comments)

Friday, March 07, 2008

Lucille 8lbs

So, Lucille is about 11 months old now and just shy of 8 lbs (around 7.8). She seems to be going through a growth spurt because she's demolishing a pair of 3oz fancy feast cans and still looking for more. In which case I put a little bit of dry food down.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 8:32 AM (0 comments)

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Lucille's desk roost

So the other spot that I have setup for Lucille to nap is between my monitors and the office window. She has a little kitty bed there where she can nap or watch the birds across the road. She seems to be very comfortable there.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 5:28 PM (0 comments)

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Lucille's roost (2)

More pictures of Lucille in her little roost.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 9:26 AM (0 comments)

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Lucille seems happy

So a few random tidbits about Lucille:

At this point, she seems very comfortable in her surroundings. Ripping through the apartment like a crazed kitty in the wee hours of the morning. Playing with balled up pieces of 8.5" x 11" paper, or her little rubber balls.

She absolutely loves her kitty tower, probably because it sits a few feet away from me during the day/evenings at my computer. So she can climb and play and keep an eye on me. I've mostly trained her to always come running when I call and scratch the top carpet on the tower. She'll come racing from wherever she is, up through the middle hole, to the top of the tower for a bit of attention. Sometimes I'll give her a treat to reinforce the behavior.

The only thing I don't like about the kitty tower is that the top platform isn't very well supported. So I may need to rig up something to support it on the one end better.

So far, no accidents with the litter box. I try to clean it once a day at a minimum, usually after 2-3 uses. I need to go shopping for some doggie poo bags to dump the stuff into as I clean the box because my supply of plastic shopping bags is running low. Or I may get paper lunch bags and use those.

I'm planning on waiting another week or two to get her to the vet. I suspect that is going to be an absolute disaster with a really stressed out kitty.

We're still working on clipping her nails. It's going very slowly and I'm trying to figure out how to manage it without freaking her out. She's got some pretty sharp claws at the moment.

She seems to be very gentle with teeth and claws though. So she was probably socialized with other kittens in the litter.

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 10:24 AM (0 comments)

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Lucille's roost

In my office, I have (2) equipment racks. One on each side of the desk (with the desk facing the window). In an effort to give Lucille a place to sit, without her wanting to sit on my keyboard, I dedicated one of the left-hand tower shelves to her comfort.



As you can see, it's fairly high off the floor, but easily accessible from the cat tree to the left. I've even seen her go inside the cat carrier. Ideally, this means that her smell will be all over the cat carrier so that she won't see it as a strange thing for future vet visits. (I have yet to test that hypothesis.)

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 9:05 AM (0 comments)

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Lucille's progress update

First up pictures!









At this point, I'd say Lucille is pretty comfortable in her environment. She climbs the kitty tower at lightning speed, sleeps on top of the kitty tower most nights, and runs crazily down the hallway playing with her bouncy balls. She's still a little shy, but some of that is kitten playfulness.

She loves getting up in my lap, or coming to visit me in bed. And she'll generally come over when called. We're still working on getting her claws trimmed this week, as she perceives it to be a bit of play. So I have to wait until she's settled down on my lap.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 9:51 AM (0 comments)

Monday, December 10, 2007

Feeding the kitty

I went back to Petco and picked up some more pet food today. Picked up a bag of Max Cat's Roasted Chicken dry kitten food to mix / alternate with the IAMS Kitten food. I also picked up some of the canned Max Cat Gourmet Classics Chicken & Liver for kittens.

Watched her eat this evening. First I put about 1oz down in the kitchen while she was still on the cat tree in the office. Took the dirty fork out and let her lick it off while I held it, then called her into the kitchen. She would alternate taking half a dozen bites from the canned plate, then a few pieces of hard food, then back to the canned plate.

She also has a moderate response to loose catnip. She doesn't go wild, but she definitely gets more frisky. I've been using that to encourage her into using the top shelf of the cat tower, and she seems to be taking to that location very well.

Lucille is an interesting character. When she is first called, she'll kind of ignore me for a few seconds. Maybe closing her eyes while looking at me with ears perked forward. Then she'll stretch, maybe turn around once, and then trot over. And if she wants up on a lap, she'll look up at me and mew once. At which point I'd better make room, because she's going to either jump into my lap, or jump behind me on the chair.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 6:42 PM (0 comments)

Lucille pics from the past two days

Dec 8th pictures. This is her finally climbing on top of things instead of scurrying around the base of things.





Dec 9th pictures. I have a lap kitty! After that, she settled down for a nap.





Last night, I'd say she slept on the bed with me for almost the whole night. She's not shy about jumping up on the bed anymore, so she comes and goes as she pleases. And this morning, she was pulling duty as my 5:30am wake-up call.

At the moment, she seems to be in exploring mood.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 6:07 AM (0 comments)

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Definitely a lap kitty

I'm currently holding a kitty who jumps into my lap with minimal encouragement and has settled down for a nap.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 3:45 PM (0 comments)

Lucille's status

Last night and today have been very good for Lucille. Last night, I was able to coax her repeatedly to come from over about 6' away to being close enough to be petted. She takes a minute or two before she decides. Then she stands up, stretches, and wanders over close enough to be petted. Usually she'll jump up on my lap with just a tiny bit of coaxing.

She's a lot more inquisitive after being held. I've been introducing her to the cat tower that way. Hold her in my arms, see whether she's interested in stepping off. Usually she does and then I pet her while she's up there. She was very comfortable up there and I remained close enough to provide security. She's started jumping up on top of the boxes in my office that I still haven't around to unpacking. She then makes the 12" jump over to the cat tower from their.

Like the good folks at the shelter said, it would've been better if I could've confined her to the bathroom at first. But it's such a tiny bathroom, I wasn't sure that she'd actually be happier there. So we've gone the longer, slower road of starting with just the kitchen / office. Her food is over near the stove and the litter box is in the far corner. Since I'm usually in the office area, working at my desk, it makes the kitchen the quiet area for her.

Because of all the progress, I've gone ahead and opened up the bedroom for her to access. I carried her slowly in there last night and we had a petting session on the bed. That's the last room that I'll be allowing her to access for a few weeks. I plan on keeping the bathroom closed off unless I'm in there, and the living room at the end of the hall is where I'm carrying out unpacking from the move. So it's full of boxes and things that I'm not sure I want her to get into until I'm positive that she's got her bearings.

I'm not exactly sure where she slept last night, but when I came out at 6am, she was sleeping on my office chair. Which doesn't surprise me as that's where we had most of yesterday evening's petting sessions. But it's another step up from sleeping under the oven. Of course, when I entered the room, she got up and skittered into the kitchen and cowered under the microwave cart by her food and the oven. So I kept my movements slow and careful and she merely watched me while I prepared something to eat. As she gets less skittish, I've been able to act a bit more normal and she doesn't go running at the small sounds like the opening of cabinet doors anymore.

She's still a little jumpy at the pops that the heat radiators make, but it's no longer triggering an instant flight response. And if I happen to be holding her, she'll settle right back down to kneading, nudging and purring. As long as I can keep any disasters from occuring, such as her knocking over something that makes a huge racket or getting hurt, I'd say that she's doing pretty good (maybe 1/4 of the way). I'm not keeping the place super quiet (I've been watching TV and listening to the radio) and I've been going about things a bit more normally. Basically, as long as she's not running and hiding I'll keep going about my business.

Right now, she's sleeping under my bed. She must have felt too exposed up on top where I left her, because she only stayed there for about 15 minutes or so.

She's getting very good about coming when called. I just coaxed her out from under the bed with a small calling (less the a minute), then she hopped up on top of the bed for a little petting. Then I walked out to the kitchen and called her there. She crossed the office with tail held high, but with a wary glance towards the desk area, before coming into the kitchen where I was sitting. Picked her up, petted her, put her down at the food dish and she's chowing down.

...

Joan from the Animal Lovers League wrote back to my e-mail this morning. She gave me a little background about Lucille that I was unclear on.

I am a co-founder of the Animal Lovers and was there the day Lucille came in. A gentleman who lived far from our town claimed he had found her (carrier and all) sitting by a garage. I was the one who put my hand in the carrier to see if she was friendly. It was startling for me to see she was ear-tipped and recently spayed and I was struck by her beautiful eyes and soft, soft coat. It does happen that kittens can be taken as pets and then thrown out on the street when they are no longer tiny.

I'll need to go back to Petco on Mon/Tue and pick up another flavor of the Max Cat Gourmet Food for kittens. What I'm feeding her now, she likes, but she doesn't seem overly enthusiastic about. I generally put 1oz down and if she eats it, I put another 0.5oz down. But last night, she didn't eat the second helping and it got a bit crusty. It took until 2pm today before I could coax her into eating the 1oz that I put down this morning. I may need to wait until she's in the kitchen before putting it down. I can also switch to feeding her 3x a day with the wet food (and of course, the dry food bowl always has something in it). I'm allowed to feed her as much as she wants.

One of the reasons that I felt comfortable bringing Lucille home from the shelter was that she was comfortable enough to eat in my presence with the cage door open. So while I was standing less then a foot away, she was willing to chow down on her wet food in my presence. I've been testing her reaction the past day, she'll now simply turn and look at me when I walk into the kitchen, but if I stop and call, she'll go back to eating.

The mantra of the weekend has been "making progress, making progress..."

I haven't decided when to get the collar on her. It may be easier to get her microchipped at the vet. She's going to be restricted to the indoors, but I need some sort of identification on her if she should get out by accident.

The corn-based litter is continuing to hold up well. Personally, I much prefer the smell of corn over clay litter and Lucille seems to like it as well. We've not had a single accident yet. And I know that if I like the smell of the litter, I'm more likely to clean the box a few times a day. So the corn based litter is worth the extra cost. (In fact, I hear a kitty in the box right now, I guess she's done eating.) It does seem to be a little dusty (she has dust on her paws), but it should be okay for her to lick it off.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 2:04 PM (0 comments)

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Lap kitty has landed

Hooray! I finally coaxed Lucille to come over to my desk chair and hop up unto my lap. Which is a big step for her since she was constantly shying away from me before. But she's been sitting nearby and watching me for most of the evening.

So we're making big progress.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 8:42 PM (0 comments)

Nosy early morning kitty

Once again last night, I slept on the office floor. That way if Lucille decided to go exploring, she wouldn't have to guess where I was. Plus, she seems a lot more affectionate in the middle of the night then during the day. Personally, I think that it's because I'm less threatening when asleep and I'm down on her level instead of looming over her.

Sure enough, I was visited two or three times last night by Lucille. Since I was half asleep I just remember being nuzzled by a purring bundle of fur. Around 6am, I decided to gradually get up while she was near. She stayed near while I was sitting or on all fours (she even hopped up on my back and clambered up to my shoulders before jumping down), but as soon as I stood up she decided she wanted some more distance.

I wandered out to the kitchen, and Lucille hid under the rolling microwave cart by her food bowls. She watched me for a minute, then retreated to under the stove. So I put the kettle on, cleaned her litter box, poured my coffee, fixed something to eat, and then re-filled her bowls. It didn't take long after I returned to the office that I heard her chowing down and then using the litter box.

Right now, I'm feeding her IAMS kitten food (hard food). I keep about half a handful in her bowl at all times and re-fill it whenever it's almost empty. Eventually, I plan on restricting that, but for the next week or so it's less stressful for her to have that available at all times. For the moist food, I switched to Max Cat Gourmet Classics Kitten Chicken & Oceanfish. The ingredient label seems to be okay. I put down about 1.5 oz at 6am and she scarfed that up first. I typically put the other half down around dinner time. And, of course, I have fresh water in a bowl that I change about twice a day.

Basically, I want her to get her fill, but I don't want half-eaten canned food sitting out for hours and hours. Eventually, I want her to consume everything within the first few hours of putting it down. Which will let me better control her weight once she matures into a fully adult cat in another 6 months.

The corn-based litter World's Best Cat Litter is expensive ($45 for a 34lb bag), but does a very good job at clumping, controlling the odor, and being easy to clean. It's not dusty and it doesn't get tracked. Plus, I'm not as worried about her ingesting a few granules when she cleans her fur. It also has a lighter mass per volume (less dense) then clay-based litter would be, so it's easier for me to pull the box out for cleaning. The only thing I need to do is find a small diaper pail that I can put the used litter into (instead of putting in small plastic bags before dumping it in the garbage). I like having the litter pan there in the corner of the kitchen under the storage shelves, that will make it convenient to clean the pan once or twice a day (I should be doing it twice).

At the moment, Lucille is sleeping away the morning under the stove. Since I have a bit of work to do, that works out just fine.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 8:04 AM (0 comments)

Friday, December 07, 2007

Lucille makes progress

In some ways, it's been a frustrating day. Lucille spent almost the entire day under the stove again in my kitchen. So while I can go peek at her through a narrow 1/2" gap, I can't see her body language or really check on her condition. But she's eating and drinking and eliminating just fine. And I have managed to draw her out twice today with the feather wand toy, she's just not interested in getting close enough for me to pet her. Everytime I get within about one meter, she's off like a rocket either to get away or to get past me towards her hiding spot.

So around 4pm, I gave it up as a bad job and ran out to the store. I figured it might give her a chance to explore a bit while I was out. And I needed groceries and a few more cat things. Things like kitten food, catnip spray and regular catnip, another bowl or two, and a laser pointer toy that I had seen earlier.

Naturally, she stayed hidden while I was unpacking the groceries and putting things away. So after I was done with that, I turned off the kitchen light and started playing with the feather wand. That made enough noise to draw her out and I then switched to the laser pointer. She's actually a little intimidated by the feather wand, so the laser dot that makes no noise is very attractive to her.

We played for a good 30-40 minutes, but she still wouldn't get within petting distance. So I stopped for a bit and prepared dinner and got ready to play a little WoW. I figured she'd simply stay under the stove the rest of the night like last night.

So we're in the middle of a 2-3 hour or so UBRS run, when I look back and see that Lucille has snuck into my office and is hiding behind one of the boxes stacked by the doorway to the kitchen. She sat there for a good two hours while we were playing WoW, just watching me and taking little cat naps. I'm guessing that she liked watching the screen and was checking me out. Which is a huge step up from cowering underneath the stove all day.





After the run was finished, I got out the laser pointer and ran her around the office for about 15 minutes. She still won't come near me, and immediately retreats if I encroach. But her tail is up and she's nosing around a lot more enthusiastically.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 11:34 PM (0 comments)

Lucille is adjusting, slowly

So, last night I slept on the floor in the office. I have closed off the bedroom, living room and bath to lessen the amount of area that she can explore initially. She finally came out from under the stove sometime past midnight. I heard her eating and using the litter box and then she finally wandered into the office area.

She was still a bit skittish, so sudden moves on my part would cause her to retreat. But eventually I coaxed her closer for a petting session, at which point she switches to full affection mode and will nuzzle and purr non-stop. I played with her for a bit, watched her explore a tiny amount of the office, then I think she went back out to the kitchen to eat.

But when I woke up this morning and went out to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast a few hours ago, she vanished behind the stove again and hasn't come back out. She had pretty well finished off all of the dry food (the wet food was completely scarfed), so I put another ounce of wet down along with a small handful of dry.

My goal for today is to coax her out of the kitchen and into the office area with a bit more confidence.

Labels: 2007, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 7:37 AM (0 comments)

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Lucille has arrived

So, I managed to carve time out of my work week yesterday to take another trip to the animal shelter. I had to go into the office early Thursday morning, so once I was done with my meeting I headed to the shelter on the way back home at lunch.

Lucille is about 7-8 months old and was a feral stray. She's solid back except for a few white hairs under her neck and she's fairly petite (off-hand, in the 5-8 lb range). She was caught, fixed, and then turned over to the shelter for some reason. So her one ear is tipped, and the shelter employees know that she was fixed because she still had stitches when she was brought in. So she's almost an adult, but not quite (I thought she was slightly older - so I have to go buy kitten food tomorrow).

She was the most approachable of the 3-4 cats that I looked at again today over my lunch break. At first, she didn't want to come out of the cage when I went to visit. So instead of forcing the issue (she was curled up in the back corner), I just stuck a hand in to let her sniff. After a minute, she started stretching and purring and nudging my hand. Another minute and she was up on the front part of the cage ready to be handled.

I spent about 10 minutes or so holding her and petting her and she was quite happy. Then I put her back in the cage and went to see some of the others. While Diamond was very pretty, she was a good bit jumpier (soon as a truck pulled up outside and started turning on the backing beep sound, she wanted nothing but to get back down in her cage). Most of the others weren't overly interested in my presence, or were skittish when I approached the cage.

So I wandered back into the other room and opened up Lucille's cage again. She was content to be petted, picked up, and would allow me to pet her while she ate. Sat with her for a while longer until she looked like she was ready to go back in the cage.

(The lady who could process my application was just driving away when I had pulled up. She needed to run a cat to the vet, and none of the volunteers are allowed to do that or to process applications. So I had time to browse the cages once more until she came back after 30-40 minutes.)

Filled out my application, paid my $100, and we managed to get Lucille in the carrier (she was not happy about that part). And off I went. She's a very non-vocal kitty and didn't vocalize at all on the trip home.

I put the carrier in a quiet corner of the kitchen near the litterbox and left the door open. It took her about an hour to work up the nerve to come out, but it wasn't long before she found the space under the oven and she's been there for about 3 hours now. So... no pictures yet until she comes out.

It's pretty typical behavior so far for a cage-bound cat. She's going from a tiny 24x30 cage to a much larger living space. I have everything blocked off so that she only has access to the kitchen and office area. But she's only explored the kitchen so far, and that was only briefly. I figure she'll get hungry in another hour or two (she ate just before we left the shelter around lunchtime) and come out. My biggest worry is that she'll choose to eliminate back in that corner and that we'll have to do some retraining right off the bat. But she has seen the litter box, and it's been quiet here all day, so she should be doing alright.

The first week is going to be mostly about her deciding that the environment is safe and familiarizing herself with it.

(I was hoping that she'd be a little more outgoing right off the bat, so I'm a little disappointed. But I suspect it will get better in a few hours.)

Labels: 2007, Cat, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 7:00 PM (0 comments)