A New Addition

Guess what?  We have a new addition to our household.  We have a "new" cat.  Our friends who just moved to Qatar have been trying to find her a new home for a while.  She's 11 year old and declawed.  We know how hard it can be to find an older cat a home (we did it a year ago).  It's even harder because they want the option of taking her back when they come back stateside.

We have taken care of this cat before.  In fact, she and Jon ended up with a bit of a love-hate relationship from that time together.  You see, while she was with us, we had her declawed (upon the request of her owner).  After I took off her pain patch early one morning, she promptly found Jon and treated him poorly (I won't go into specifics.  Let's just say it was not pretty.). 

Since then, she has been known to run away, vomit, and hiss whenever she sees him.  This time though she has mellowed a bit.  There was no vomiting or hissing and she even lets him hold her.  We realize we have a ways to go before she is comfortable, but at least we are making progress.  And her "owner" is happy that she's with someone who loves cats and has children which will keep her acclimated to such things (since they have a 16 mo old).

Unfortunately, all this change has affected the cat in some less than desirable ways. We have traveled with her before and she did very well that time.  In fact, she curled up in our laps or on our sholders in the car and slept most of the way.

The two days we just finished traveling were very different.  She pooped in the truck minutes after refusing to use the litter box (luckily we had vinyl down to protect the seats from the kids), meowed most of the way, and every time she got nervous she would climb into my lap and invariably scratch me.  I think all of this has determined that while traveling she will be in the camper rather than the truck.  We did that for the last part of the trip yesterday and it seemed to work better for not only us but her as well.

We're excited about our new addition, but can't wait to be in a house so that she can settle into her new life.