Three Months after We Adopted a New Cat, Here’s How It’s Going…

It’s been three months since QQ, formerly Suzie, formerly Sunny, came to live with us, and while the situation isn’t perfect, it’s evolving, which I guess is good as long as I don’t have to share my food with her.

Location

QQ still has “her room”, and she totally likes to hang out there…when the human male is with her. Otherwise, like Mama and Larry before her, she’s decided she wants to be part of the group, which means she jumps the gate and comes downstairs.

Your puny gate can’t stop me! — by Christina Delzenero

Or, if she doesn’t feel comfortable coming downstairs but wants attention, she sings the song of her people from the top of the stairs so it echoes and summons the humans. (And FYI, her song is NOT my song, because my song is all about eating and napping, and hers is about being a pain in the butt. Ugh. Kids!) At night, she’s kind of all over the place, but she isn’t messing with my comfy chair, so I don’t care.

Smells

Let’s see…a month ago, the humans were having issues with territory marking. They cleaned out all of QQ’s room, top to bottom, hosed everything down with some anti-cat-smell stuff (which is super disrespectful TBH, because I smell amazing), and watched to see if that’d help…

And it did!

No more random peeing or Anger Poop anywhere. The human female is *so* thankful for that.

I would never angry poop! — by Christina Delzenero

However.

The human female did decide to try those plug-in things again. She’s got them everywhere in the house now so we’re all supposed to be calm or something. I’m totally calm, unless I’m not, which is fair I think.

Time and Patience

The reason the human female decided to put the plug-in things everywhere is because Little Squishie and QQ are *still* having issues. QQ is still being territorial, and she doesn’t want to let Little Squishie past her so he can go into the bedroom next to her bedroom, even though she’s like barely spending any time in her bedroom these days. So sometimes in the mornings, the human male or the human female are woken up by the sound of hissing and spitting and growling, and have to go separate us (yes, us — I’m police cat, remember? I always get involved when there’s a fight. It’s my duty to insert my six-pound self into any altercation because I always stop the fight.)

Little Squishie in a hiding spot that isn’t much of a hiding spot — by Christina Delzenero

But the spats between those two don’t seem to be *as* bad as they were before, and they’re not happening as often.

And that’s good, because now Mama’s decided she’s not sure how she feels about QQ. Or rather, QQ isn’t sure how she feels about Mama. And honestly, when Mama moved in at first, none of us were sure how we felt about her. She’s built like a tank, throws her weight around for food, and when she starts running, you MOVE or she’ll bulldoze you. She grew up in a junkyard and hung out with raccoons (which I think are like smellier version of dogs, gross!), and while *I’m* not afraid of her, the other cats know not to mess with her.

Mama’s a bit of a chonk, but she has laser eyes! — by Christina Delzenero

The first few times Mama and QQ saw each other, it was bad. Poofy tails, growling, and I had to get involved. Now it’s more that Mama will stop and stare at QQ, but QQ will still growl at Mama. QQ is like eight years younger than Mama and in better shape physically, but Mama’s the cat version of a junkyard dog, and she fights *dirty*. QQ needs to get over herself and get on Mama’s good side.

Maybe this is Mama’s good side? — by Christina Delzenero

Flexibility

The human male is still spending the night in QQ’s room a few nights a week. Again, while the humans don’t love that arrangement, it helps QQ feel like she belongs, and it helps the human female sleep better because the boy cats tend to follow the human male, so she doesn’t have three boys sleeping at the foot of the bed, preventing her from moving. I like it because it means I get to sleep where the boys usually sleep, which means more human female time and sometimes middle of the night treats when Goldie gets to eat.

QQ standing guard on her tree outside her room — by Christina Delzenero

The humans also decided not to put up any holiday decorations this year, because they didn’t know how QQ would deal with those. QQ has a history of eating things that aren’t food (kinda like Little Squishie with tulle, and Big Squishie with stupid stuff like varnish…), and since she’s not totally integrated with us yet, the humans didn’t want to present her with stuff she might decide to stress eat. Kind of a bummer, because all of us enjoy climbing into the tree at least once during the season, but oh well.

The humans are a little discouraged that it’s taking so long for QQ to acclimate with us. As far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t be shocked, because the rest of us have been together for years now, and we’re used to each other. Bringing a new cat into the house, especially one who’s WAY younger than the rest of us (although not cuter, because I am clearly the cutest) and has WAY different needs, was always going to be a challenge. But the humans are adapting, and the rest of us (begrudgingly) are, too.