It was not lost on us, not even from the beginning, that bringing home another cat would be a huge time-suck of responsibility and mediation. We did not know how the other cats would react to a new kitten. I was worried about Sadie the most, as she's standoffish and skittish on her best days and in my mind, would be the least likely to want a little goblin tearing ass around the house and taking my attention away from her. Pete, I thought, would love him as he'd have a little orange cuddlebuddy, and Maggie I figured would be mostly indifferent to the entire scenario, or would be scared by him and would try to run and hide anywhere and everywhere her fat old ass could.
I was mostly wrong on all three counts. But we'll get to that.
Once we were away from the humane society and he was indeed ours, we immediately drove over to the parents' to show them our new baby. The parents had just returned from Nova Scotia a few nights before, and it was the first time I'd seen them since their return. However, as we literally had a cat in a box, we couldn't stay long -- just long enough for introductions so that they could see the little orange-and-white thing that was understandably a bit shaken up by the whole ordeal of being in a cage a short while ago, then getting love from two kind people he recognized, before being put into a dark box with breathing holes and driven across town.
We also had to stop and get his special kitten food, some toys, and a litter pan and some litter for him before we could go home. While we had a spare, unused pan somewhere in storage in this house, we didn't know where, and didn't want to tear apart rooms and closets to find it. We also were setting up our bedroom as the base of Cat Operations™ where he would be sequestered away from the other cats, at least until we could get him to the vet and certify that he was healthy and didn't have any parasites or sicknesses that could affect our old farts. He'd be safe and protected in our bedroom; we'd set up the litter pan, his food and water, and his toys in there and we'd cat-proof the room the best we could, so that there wouldn't be anything he could get into or destroy.
First, however, we had to settle on a name. Daisy was not fond of "Otis," the name the humane society had given him, but at face value I didn't mind it that much and told her I didn't mind keeping it, really, if we couldn't come up with anything else. We cycled through a bunch of ideas again; I really wanted to name him after a comic book character or a Star Trek character. So, for a while, I wanted to call him Worf, or Logan, or Riker, or Clark, or Quark, or something of that ilk. Daisy shot down all of them but Kirk, which is coincidentally my own middle name (there's an entire story behind that that I'll probably eventually share here) but I didn't really feel that he was a Kirk. Names have power and meaning, and he was going to have whatever name we gave him for his entire life, hopefully many years. It wasn't just something we could give him on a whim.
There was a time though where I was pushing hard for non-human names like Poutine and Waffle.
No food names, Daisy declared.
Anyway.
We brought him home and sat the box down in the middle of the living room with all three of the old farts. We didn't want them to interact too much with him, but we did want them to see, know, and comprehend that we'd brought another life into the house. He didn't want to jump out of the box on his own (again, he was tiny and I'm not sure at the time he could have done so anyway), so we took him out and placed him on the floor in the center of the living room.
Pete eyed him with suspicion, and when he moved, Pete hissed and ran away.
Sadie came up to him first, sniffed him and the air around him, then hissed and ran off herself.
We took him over to Maggie, who was lounging on the couch and couldn't be bothered to move, to let her see him. Her response was exactly what I predicted -- she looked at him as if he was a new toy she had no interest in, and then realized very quickly oh, that thing is alive. She also hissed at him.
Poor little boy.
But, the old farts had passed the first test -- they knew he existed and they didn't try to attack him and seemed more concerned that they would be attacked. I didn't get the sense that they saw him as an intruder, just someone new and slightly frightening because he was new. To be fair, the little boy did not go after any of them either, he was more of the demeanor of saying hi and trying to make friends.
We set him up in the room upstairs and made sure the old farts got extra love and reassurances. Pete and Sadie immediately set up camp right outside the now-closed bedroom door, as they knew that there was a creature in there.
Maggie did not, and to this day does not, give a single shit about this new cat.
As we both played with him, locked in the room, and gave him all the love, we continued to go through names. Daisy really wanted to name him after her father -- who, I will stress, is still alive, so it's not like it's a tribute or an "in memoriam" thing, which I shot down hard because I'm sorry, that's just fucking weird. We cycled through some more ideas while we played with this very active and rambunctious little boy, before Daisy looked at me.
"Hank?" she said, sighing, but also looking at the way this cat acted and how he played.
"Hank," I said, nodding. "This cat has Hank energy. This cat has big Hank energy."
And so, Hank the Tank was born. Well, christened, anyway. The "The Tank" moniker even fit as well, because of his giant feet.
He is the sweetest boy.
We kept him in the room for the first few days. Daisy ordered some more toys for him off Amazon and a giant cat tree from Target (which took her three and a half hours to build while I was working a few nights later). She set up his cat pan in the corner of the room behind our giant mirror, so that he would have some privacy. I ordered two more bags of his food off Amazon, as he has a voracious appetite (well, he is a growing boy, after all).
Over the course of a few days, we learned a lot of things about this little cat.
He is an aggressive kisser. He will stick his entire nose into your mouth. He will rub his face all over your face. He will lick your lips and face and will stick his tongue up your nostril. Repeatedly.
He has tried, on multiple occasions, to breastfeed from Daisy.
He is healthy, parasite free, no illnesses and no ill effects from his Ivermectin overdose. Moreover, no problems healing from his neutering and no lasting effects from being picked up off the streets or being separated from his mother so early.
He was 3.5 pounds at his vet visit, and by the time we go back in another week and a half to get his shots and get him fully registered, we expect that he'll be up another pound or more. He is growing very quickly.
The vet said that he thinks the shelter/foster family who had him was mistaken, as due to his teeth growth he looked more like he was 10 or 11 weeks old, not the 8 or 9 we were told. That would put his date of birth right around May 1, which is what I've set it at for birthday celebrations for him in the future.
He violently farts when he's hyper or agitated. They stink. Daisy has discouraged me from calling him "Hank the Stank" or "Hank the Rank."
He is a cuddler. There are times when he wants to be picked up and held, and he will let you know because he is vocal about it.
He is vocal in general and is always happy to see us. When we come into a room and he's in there, if he is awake he will come trotting over to us, mewing and running between/rubbing on our legs. He wants love, he wants to love and be loved. He wants acknowledgement and to be the focus of your attention.
He does not like loud noises -- of any sort. Doors opening and closing scare him. The TV scares him. The vacuum terrifies him. We've had some pretty nasty storms off and on as of late, and thunder makes him jump. He will cuddle up tight with Daisy (and Pete, but more on this later) when it storms.
He adores the giant cat tree that Daisy purchased and built for him:
And finally, all he wants to do is play and make friends.
This has gone about as well as you'd expect, at least with Pete.
Over the course of about a week, once we'd been given the clean bill of health from the vet, we began taking Hank out of the room for short periods to let him explore the house. In the beginning, this was five or ten-minute stretches so that he could wander about, the other cats could see him and interact with him if they so chose (mostly, it was just hissing from the girls). This was slowly stretched out to an hour or so, or two hours, where we'd monitor him as he explored and monitor the older cats as they interacted with him and began to realize that he wasn't going anywhere.
We had friends over to the house on two separate occasions, who oohed and aahed over him, which also got him accustomed to other people and other smells.
Whenever the door to the bedroom was open, Pete and Sadie would bust in -- Pete would get his normal spot on the bed very quickly, and Sadie would usually run under it to her own spot, even when they knew Hank was in there. When we would try to get them out for the night so we could lock up Hank, they first left the room willingly, then begrudgingly, and then eventually they refused to leave because they'd once more recaptured control of the bedroom.
Or so they thought.
Hank has claimed the bedroom as his base of Cat Operations™ -- as I mentioned before. Upon his giant cat tree, which the other cats are too old and tired to climb up on or disturb -- he is lord of all he surveys. So, even once we gave him basically free reign of the house 24/7 (which took several weeks of gradual exploration time and introductions to the other cats he shared the house with), most of the time we'd find him upstairs in the bedroom asleep on the bed or on his tree (like the photo above).
Maggie, as I said, does not give a single shit that Hank is in the house. When they had some of their first interactions, she chuffed at him in a "leave me alone" sort of way, and for the most part, Hank has abided by her wishes and doesn't bother her. He is curious about her, and she will watch him play, but neither of them disturbs the other.
Sadie was apprehensive for the first few days, but gathered enough courage to approach him when he wasn't being hyper -- they smelled each other, tried to lick each other, and then gave each other an "okay, you're cool" look before walking away from one another. Ever since then Hank and Sadie have been friends. He can tear ass around the house and run back and forth past her playing with his toys, or just generally being a hyper kitten, and she will either pay zero attention or she'll just watch him with idle curiosity. When he pounces on her back or side when she's laying down, or if she's walking to or from another room and he runs up to her, she'll occasionally hiss briefly if he startles her, but most of the time she's just like "c'mon man, I'm old." He will also cuddle with her or lay closely with her when she sleeps with me during the day. I could've cried when they became friends, because I was so worried about Sadie. I think it also helps that I always love on her and reassure her that he's just a baby, he's not a threat, when he's around and being hyper. I think that calmness from me really put her at ease.
I have also verbally told her many times that she is loved and she is not being replaced, and I think to some extent that really helps too.
Hank, however, is bound and determined that he and Pete will be friends, goddammit and that they will play together whether Pete likes it or not.
Pete, so far, has been mostly unenthusiastic about this.
I will take an aside here and state that Pete is a very loving, very peaceful cat most of the time. He is also fiercely territorial, claims Daisy as his love and true mother, and he is super jealous and protective of not only her, but me to an extent as well. If I'm paying attention to Sadie or Maggie, he gets jealous. If Daisy and I are trying to cuddle together in bed on the weekends, he always tries to get in the middle of us so he can be part of it too, or so he can become the center of attention. He also has no time or tolerance for foolishness or rambunctiousness, and he just wants to live in peace, eat his food, sleep 18 hours a day and get love from us when he wants it.
Now throw a young, hyper kitten into that mix who wants to wrestle and play with him all the time, because he recognizes Pete as another male.
How do you think that went?
I'm not gonna lie, it was a pretty rough two weeks or so.
Pete, who I expected to be ecstatic that he'd have a cuddle buddy with whom he could snuggle, gently play with, and love like his own son...immediately got massive anxiety and would run from Hank, crying/yowling and spraying/marking around the house -- including on Daisy's slippers and eventually peeing on her directly when he was particularly anxious.
Oh hell naw, not gonna happen on my watch.
We began to soothe Pete as much as possible, give him treats, love on him as much as we could....and immediately took him to the vet to make sure he wasn't having any UTI-like problems as well as to get him back on his anxiety medication we had to put him on when we bought this house. He's fine, he doesn't have any UTI, he's just anxious. And the medication helps him a lot. It gets him high (well, as much as "kitty Xanax" can) and he goes to sleep. As far as I know, he hasn't marked or sprayed anywhere for a week, and Hank is back to just being a hyper little nuisance to him again. Pete does have a follow up appointment later this week to have bloodwork done and get his vaccinations, as the vet said he'd lost a couple of pounds since his last visit (to where, who knows -- as to us he looks like he's slowly getting fatter) and as he's very old, they want to see if he's in the beginning stages of kidney failure too, like Maggie.
But Hank. Oh, Hank.
Since Hank is so determined to get Pete to be his friend, he follows Pete around the house when he's hyper, nipping at his tail or attacking his legs. Sometimes he pounces on Pete and bites his neck. Sometimes he jumps on Pete's old hips, which hurts him, and Pete yelps and goes after him. But the general scenario is that they will lay on the bed together, facing each other, and Hank will bat at Pete's face. Pete will bat back and they'll lightly spar, but it's very clear that Pete is becoming irritated, as he'll begin whacking his tail hard on the bed. Hank sees the whacking tail and is like "Oooh, something to attack!" and begins going after the tail. It's about this point where Pete gets pissed off enough to get up and leave the room (or otherwise run away) and Hank then chases him. Sometimes Hank gives up, sometimes he doesn't and keeps going hard -- he's still a baby, he doesn't know any better. He just wants to play, and isn't getting the message from Pete.
We've had to separate them a few times and then give Pete extra love, some treats, and comfort to calm him back down again. It also doesn't help that Pete actually likes Hank most of the time, and always wants to be in the room with him or supervise him in some capacity -- so when Hank wanders off, Pete will follow him.
You can't reason with old cats. I've told Pete that if he wants Hank to leave him alone, the easiest way to do that is to not aggressively thwack his tail in Hank's presence and to not fucking follow him from room to room, but it's not like Pete understands that.
To be fair, Hank loves Pete and wants to be around him all the time. In their quieter hours, he will sleep with Pete on the bed or couch, and we do have video of Pete holding Hank like a teddy bear and licking his head.
But, Hank is young. Hank is aggressive. Hank is full of energy. Hank has little concern for boundaries or even the concept of them.
"This cat is a menace," I told my parents when I called them a few weeks ago and told them some of the stories about his interactions with Pete. "But he's a very cute one."
Hank has had full run of the house for about two weeks now, and while he is hyper and a curious little goblin (that's what we call him: "the goblin"), he is not destructive, he doesn't really get into things, he always uses the litter pan correctly (and all of the other pans too), and -- most importantly -- he doesn't run up walls, climb curtains, get into cabinets, get into food, shred the furniture, attack the old ladies, or anything else like that. Yes, he is a hyper kitten and he does hyper kitten things. But, he is a night-and-day difference compared to raising Pete, who I had to basically lay on top of to get him to stop being hyper and go to sleep when it was time to sleep.
Hank, on the other hand, is like "Oh, it's time to sleep now? Okay, let me get comfortable then."
He has the most wonderful personality and love language I've ever seen in a cat. I've frequently been awakened by him, sweetly, by him licking my beard/mustache and him sticking his nose up my nose, or his tongue up my nostril, when he cuddles with me. When we eat dinner, if he's not hyper, he frequently lays down between my feet or crawls under the couch blanket with Daisy. He loves looking out the window. He loves spending time with us and the other cats. I told Daisy he's the best decision we made since getting married.
"Uh, the house?" she said. "We bought this house too, since we've been married."
I had to think about it for a minute.
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