The Meatball

 On Thursday morning, we received a call from our vet regarding Gary. Based on our recorded observations, his weight gain and size increase -- as well as his activity levels (read: Goblin Time) -- and his mostly-recovered guts, of course...our vet's recommendation was that he was likely just fine and that his stomach would continue to get better as time went on and he essentially "grows up."

This meant that yes, we finally had clearance to let him loose into the house to explore his new environment and interact with the other cats. If his guts had not been getting better, if he hadn't been gaining weight and hadn't become active and super-playful like a normal kitten, that would have been a cause for concern and a sign that there was very likely a larger issue or illness at play. But, in a week and a half of being sequestered in our master bedroom, he gained over a pound of weight (on a kitten as small as Gary, that is very significant), his stomach began to regulate more and more by the day on his new food, his appetite surged and he began eating like a horse, and he became really active and playful -- running back and forth across the room, running up and down the cat tree, pouncing on us and chewing our fingers, etc. Based on those things alone, the vet was comfortable in saying the chance of him having any sort of debilitating illness was very slim.

Now, mind you, this is a now sixteen-week-old kitten who is tiny (not even three pounds, but very close) and has not really had the opportunity to be socialized a lot with other cats -- he had spent most of his life in a cage or locked in a room. He had a calico sister in his cage with him at the shelter who was not sick, so she was removed from said cage and was adopted out long before him. So, he attached very hard to both Daisy and myself, and was absolutely crazy curious about the other cats beyond the baby gate in the rest of the house:

By far, he was the most curious about Mable and Charlie, who showed the most interest in his existence inside the bedroom. Pete didn't seem to care -- he just knew he couldn't get into the room. Hank would take one look (from afar), growl or hiss slightly, and then run back downstairs. Emmy was very cautious and would approach the gate, and then Gary would notice and run up on her, which would make her jump and then spit-hiss and slink off.

Mable and Charlie would generally just sit there, as if holding a conversation with him. Occasionally Charlie would hiss at first, but as the days went on they began to play footsie through the mesh of the gate and try to touch noses. We discouraged that (as Gary was still, essentially, in quarantine), but Charlie was so curious and excited to have another little child in the house.

I will note here that Mable and Charlie are the sweetest "siblings" I've seen in a very long time. Mable adores Charlie -- well, everyone adores Charlie, but Mable especially loves him:

She watches over that boy, she cuddles and licks him, she holds him like a teddy bear, and they play together every single day. She is a fantastic big sister to him. 

And yet, now we have this new child in the house. An interloper, a little fuzzball with a strong personality who keeps trying to break out of the room to get to meet everyone. I absolutely did not want Gary to wreck Mable's relationship with Charlie, or have her be left in the dust because the two rambunctious boys would rather play with each other than the big sister. Yet, I also wanted Mable to form her own bond with Gary, because he is a lot like Charlie in his love language and energy levels, and when Mable plays, she plays hard and needs someone who can go toe-to-toe with her, not cower away in a corner when she gets rough. 

So Mable would sit there, much like she is in the picture above, and observe the child. Occasionally she'd inch close enough to sniff him or play footsie with him, like he did with Charlie, but she was more easily spooked and would hiss and hop away if he ran up on her. Most of the time she'd just observe.

I think that "observation time" is a really important thing in introducing new cats to the other established household members. Charlie wasn't having any of that and wanted out into the house as soon as he could get out there -- his isolation time was the shortest of all of them; he was out and free in two days. Mable was a process, as Hank and Emmy immediately strongly disliked having another cat in the house. Empress was a process, even -- she was sick and vomiting/having diarrhea as she'd just been fixed, and had to spend a night or two in the bathroom until she was better. Hank, as the first cat we'd brought into the house, had a very brief introduction to the oldies where Maggie and Sadie hissed and ran when they realized he was alive, and Pete wasn't a huge fan of him either (Pete peed in Daisy's shoes and began marking around the house again when he hadn't done so in years) until he got used to him.

Gary had had enough time in isolation; our master bedroom, while way more comfortable than the shelter or wherever he'd been kept during the brief time he had been fostered, was still just a bigger cage. He needed  that social interaction with the other cats and he needed to be able to run and be free. If his health had not been an issue, I would've wanted him out and interacting with everyone within a short few days, but we wanted to be as cautious as possible.

So, Thursday evening, we finally let him out to explore and interact with the cats. 

We thought Pete would be thrilled; he gave zero shits whatsoever about Gary. Normally Pete loves the kittens, wants to meet them and make over them and be all "lovey grandpa" with them -- not this time around. He gave Gary some sniffs and limited interaction, but Pete was happy to be able to come back into the bedroom again and sleep on the bed with us more than anything else. His reaction was sort of like Sadie's reaction to the kittens once we started adopting them regularly -- knowledge and acknowledgment of their existence, but in a "you got another one? cool, he's cute, tell him to leave me alone" sort of way.

Mind you, Pete is very old now and he may just be "over it" when it comes to interacting with new kittens. He doesn't mind them -- in fact, he adores Mable and Charlie, and has ever since they came into this house -- but with Gary he has close to zero interest whatsoever. So far, anyway.

Charlie immediately began playing with Gary, both of them going hard on each other (but not in like, a fighting way). He holds his own and stands up to Charlie, and will chase him. He does the same with Mable, but in more of a limited fashion. Mable was still a little spooked and apprehensive, and hung back a bit to watch the boys play. So, he will occasionally try to play with Mable and mostly fails.

From across the room, Hank and Emmy quietly observed, rarely letting their eyes off him. They did not appear scared or honestly, really angry, but I would describe them as concerned. Hank would approach Gary, smell his butt or follow him from room to room, but if Gary turned around to face Hank, Hank would slink back and growl a little. Emmy's behavior was much the same. Gary tried to run up on Emmy in an attempt to get her to play, and she was like "oh, there will not be any of that yet" and stopped him in his tracks by lightly bapping him on his forehead with her paw. 

A house this large for such a small kitten presented an entirely new experience for Gary, and we could absolutely see that he was getting sensory overload with all the sights and sounds and smells, not to mention five other cats who were watching his every move. 

He did very quickly find the litter pan(s) and began to navigate the larger pieces of furniture -- he figured out how to get into the front window very quickly, figured out how to get under the TV stand, up and down behind the couch, and where the water bowls and fountain were. However, I worked on Thursday night, and with all of these cats watching him at all times, with him exploring, and with how I never know how my night is going to go, I told Daisy that I'd like him to remain in the bedroom for the overnight hours on Thursday night and then we'd test on Friday with him to see if he could be out full time.

Gary did not like this idea. He howl-screamed when he was put back in the bedroom, like someone was beating him. Any time the bedroom door opened he did a flying leap and began climbing the baby gate like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building to see if he could escape back into the house before we could catch his little kitten ass. 

Eventually he did settle down on Thursday night and he was fine.

On Friday morning, I got off work and had to shower and sleep fast -- on Thursday morning, our AC had blown out again (same issues as before) and we'd scheduled the repairman to come back out on Friday afternoon. I would have to sleep beforehand and take care of it once he got to the house, since Daisy is working and is chained to her desk and phone all day for her job, with little opportunity to get away during her shift. So, I slept in the bedroom with Gary, who snuggled up at my side or lounged in the cat tree all day.

Once the AC was repaired -- more rodent damage to the wiring that had not been caught the first time around, but was fixed this time -- and once Daisy got off work, we were confidently able to let the little meatball roam the house again.

Yes, that's what I've, lovingly, been calling him -- the meatball. I can't exactly call him the boychild (as I did for Charlie) or the tribble (as I did for Mable). He's just a little meatball with fur on him and a long fluffy tail. 

Daisy haaaaaates that I call him this as a nickname, by the way.

The meatball has also been given a DNA test, as we have done for all of our cats -- that went out in the mail on Saturday. We desperately want to know what's in his genes, as given his patterning, the ear tufts, and the tufts between his toes we are so very confident that we have a Norwegian Forest Cat/Ragdoll/Maine Coon on our hands here. I would bet so much money on those being his three biggest breed contributors, likely in that order, based on his coat and overall appearance/demeanor. It'll likely be close to the end of summer before we get the results back.

He has not been sequestered in the room again since Friday night. He wanders the house to get the lay of the land, but he is not destructive or antagonistic. Generally he interacts and plays with the other cats very sweetly and mostly respectfully (I say mostly because there are times where Charlie wants him to stop going after him for playtime and he won't, and vice versa), and tends to find places to lounge and be comfortable. He has a big bowl of his special food downstairs -- we had to pick up the cats' other foods so that he doesn't eat them and get sick with his stomach issues -- and the other cats can graze on that as well without any adverse effects. When we feed the other cats their normal food, we either make sure Gary is preoccupied or being held by one of us so that the older cats can get a chance to eat as much as they want and won't be free-feeding until Gary is older and his guts can handle more complex foods. Daisy wants to eventually switch all of the cats to timed meals and get rid of free-feeding altogether, and I told her while that's a great idea in theory, I think it is going to be very difficult to put into practice in a household of five other cats who have always had access to both wet and dry food, as well as treats, anytime they've wanted any of that for their entire lives. 

I also have qualms about doing that as they're not all hungry at the same time, and if a cat isn't hungry during their mealtime then they don't get another chance -- I don't want to give all of them anxiety or stress about their food at the same time we're bringing another little goblin into the house -- cats are very pattern-based and when those patterns are disrupted, they begin acting out. I don't want Pete to start peeing all over the house again, or show Hank and Charlie that doing so would be an appropriate way to voice their own protests. Daisy relenting to allow me to put a big bowl of Gary's food down in the living room as something everyone can graze on, and Gary himself can eat when he wants, was her compromise. And to their credit, the other cats do seem to enjoy that food. They can also come into my room to eat some treats or Cat Chow anytime they want, as I keep both in here and make it available to them when they come in. 

Anyway.

Friday night, Gary wandered the house and was fine. I was shocked how easily he integrated and how little the other cats seemed to be bothered by his presence. Now, to be fair, they all knew he was in the house, and they all interacted with him to some extent via the baby gate in front of the bedroom door. When we went to bed on Friday night, Gary did indeed come upstairs and sleep with us, though he wanted to harass Charlie to make him play with him in the middle of the night, and I took Charlie into my office with me to sleep on the ottoman away from the rambunctious meatball. 

He was fine. He didn't get into anything, he didn't destroy anything, he just found a comfy place to sleep and conked out. When I got up Saturday morning to use the bathroom, he and Pete were just chillin' together in the hallway. Not cuddling, not interacting, just he was lounging on one side of the hallway and Pete was on the other. When we left on Saturday morning for our shelter volunteer hours, when we returned he was sleeping in the cat tree in the living room. When we left again and came back after taking Daisy's mother out to lunch for Mother's Day, he was sleeping in the cat bed in the front window. 

He is...pretty chill. He's a normal kitten. He likes playing with the other cats and if he's not playing, he's basically exploring, wandering, or doing his own thing. He seems to be a bit more independent than the others were -- he has not exactly begun the bonding process with any of the other cats yet. I haven't seen him cuddle with any of the other cats, or flop down and show his belly as an act of submission. He will cuddle up with us, but in bed -- not on the couch yet. He eats like a horse and has tons of playful energy, but also gets a lot of quiet downtime where he's just in the same room with everyone, and everyone knows he is there, but none of them mind. 

But I do find it wildly interesting that he is that much more independent than the others were -- that he has not attempted to cuddle up with any of the other cats yet. Mable laid on top of him on Saturday night when Daisy went to bed and Gary joined her, but I'm not sure exactly how intentional that was. He does seem to want to be around us when we're awake and he's awake, or at least within sight of us. Last night when I was working, he spent most of the night in the bowl scratch pad, in the cat tree, or in the little cat bed I put on my desk for him:

He is a very sweet, playful little boy. We can't really gauge his intelligence levels yet, and we can't really gauge his kindness and lovey-ness levels yet like we immediately could with Charlie, but I think we will soon. He's still adjusting. What I can say is that he seems...happy, at peace, and feels safe. He feels completely safe with Daisy and myself, and around the other cats I think there will need to be a little more of an adjustment period before he really starts to come out of his shell and we can see what his real personality will be like.