First, we brought home Totsie, a six month old calico. The previous owner, a teenaged girl, had named her Tootsie and had even written her name on her carrier with stickers. It seems, though, she only had one “O” sticker because she spelled the name Totsie. We loved that version of the name and kept it. Sometimes she’s Hotsie Totsie.
Then, a couple of weeks later, we brought home Silver Boy, a handsome silver tabby. He’d been at KittyKind for quite some time and, before that, in a small apartment with 20 other cats. He was really afraid of people and did not want to be touched at all. The first week, we just kept him in the bathroom and he was very unwilling to come out of his carrier when we went in there to visit him. We did, however, observe signs that he was coming out when he was by himself such as the bathtub duck not being in it’s usual place and unrolled toilet paper. Lots of toilet paper. Little did we realize what we were in for.
We moved him to the bedroom and eventually he and Totsie met face to face. There was some hissing at first, but they quickly got comfortable around each other, especially when there were toys to be played with. Over the weeks, he’s become more and more at home, largely due to Totsie’s efforts. She gives him lots of the attention he clearly craves from another cat such as playing and licking. She doesn’t bully him or let him bully her. She even shows him that it’s okay to let people give you pets. After a few weeks of this, he started to let us pet him sometimes. We named him Whiskers.
Now, there’s playing all the time in our apartment. Playing with the bathtub duck. Playing with crinkle balls. Playing with a pea that has fallen to the floor when dinner was being made. Their favorite is double playing; with one hand, you shake the fishing rod toy for Whiskers while, with the other hand, you throw a milk ring for Totsie to play fetch with. They can do this forever. Really.
Whiskers still isn’t completely normal. We can only pet him sometimes and picking him up is out of the question. He may continue to warm up to us or he may not. Still, he seems happy now and Totsie’s happy to have someone to play with too. We wouldn’t give them up for anything.
Thanks so much, Leslie
