There's a t-shirt I own with a picture of a mischievous raccoon on it, and it says "don't be part of the problem, be the whole problem."
This cat is going to be the whole problem.
Empress is the single most beautiful long haired cat I have ever seen. She may be the most beautiful cat I've ever seen, period. She is everything I wanted in a little girl and everything I wanted in the cat that would bear her name. With that comes a lot of issues, though, and we're seeing them arise already -- four days into our parenthood of this little gremlin.
I'll start from the beginning, though, and that is she appears fine -- when I awoke yesterday morning I went to the bathroom to check on her, to find that she had not vomited again and she had, apparently, used the pan. She was desperate for love and cuddles, and was so very happy I was there with her to pick her up, hold her, and love her. She'd drank almost all of her water and had eaten most of the dry kitten food I'd put in there with her, too. Stage one of the bathroom sequestration had been a success.
Now that was fine, and now that we were moderately confident that she wasn't actually sick, just coming off the surgery meds -- we were ready to start the slow process of introduction to the other cats, starting with the boys.
Pete I was not concerned about -- he was very excited to see her and I know part of that was because of the bonding he'd done with Hank when Hank was just a tiny little orange thing and not the tank of a cat he has since become. Hank was going to be the issue, what with the growling and hissing.
As mentioned here before, Pete is a pretty relaxed cat in his old age. He's the most active and most normal of the older cats, and by far the healthiest, but his wild demon days are long behind him now. He now mostly just wants love and cuddles, treats and food, and to be allowed to sleep peacefully wherever he chooses. Hank was a playmate for him, and still is to an extent, but as Hank has gotten older and much larger, he's also greatly matured and does not generally go hard with Pete anymore. They still play, they still cuddle and lick each other sometimes, but most of the time now they simply coexist and that's about it. Hank now listens to Pete and takes the hint when Pete does not want to be bothered the vast majority of the time, and I don't expect that to change.
Don't get me wrong, Hank is still sometimes hyper and still tears ass around the house a few times a week, but most of the time he's just content to be with us and the other cats and is a happy little boy.
When we formally introduced Empress to Pete, she was so excited to see this big black cat that was easily three times her size. She rubbed all over him, she flopped against him, she just wanted to touch him and love him and be a little cuddler with him. Pete seemed mostly content about this -- he was used to it from Hank -- and only occasionally hissed a little if she went after his tail too hard, or pounced on his back in the wrong place, even though he knew she was just playing. She was just thrilled to be there with him and make a new friend. Pete made sure her asshole was clean (he apparently has a thing about that) and just wanted her to settle so he could wrap his paws around her and lick her, but she was too excited to let him do that for long. It was simply adorable to see them interact. I did not think Pete would be a problem, but I knew that he could be. After seeing them interact I think he'll be fine -- Emmy is a lover, not a fighter. Hank is the scrapper of the household.
We let them interact a few times -- first in the bedroom and later again in my office upstairs. These were short intervals of time, maybe 5-10 minute stretches at most -- just to let Pete get used to her and to let their scents mingle. It was very clear during these interactions that Pete did not see her as a threat and seemed to recognize that she was a baby, and a sweet one at that. Pete is patient anyway; he was so patient and kind with Hank even when Hank was going hard on him over those first few weeks and months. Pete could have stomped Hank into the ground if he'd wanted to, to teach him a lesson, but he did not. He is a much kinder, gentler soul in his older years than he was in his younger ones.
I spent much of the weekend, however, very concerned about Hank and what he would do. Hank is loving and can be so very sweet, but he is also territorial and is intensely, fiercely defensive sometimes of both himself and whatever territory he's staked a claim on -- namely me and Daisy. When Daisy and I were in my office, door open, with Pete and Hank, any time Empress made a noise from the bathroom, Hank would growl softly and run to the bathroom door with his belly on the ground, and would growl and hiss -- not terribly but enough to where she could hear it -- and he would put his nose right out of the reach of her paws from under the door, trying to get her scent.
When we finally introduced him to her, he growled and hissed loudly and backed up, began to corner himself. I told Daisy to not let her corner him because that wouldn't go well, but before I could finish my sentence, Emmy marched right up to Hank (she has zero fear) and smelled him. He smelled her. She sniffed all around his face, and then licked his nose. The growling and hissing immediately stopped.
Hank was not angry at her existence, he was scared of her. Hank the Tank, our twelve-pound short-legged husky chonk of a boy, was scared of the 2.6 pound ball of fluff with huge eyes.
Emmy had introduced herself to him. Come here you big orange fuck, we're gonna be friends.
Since then they've been great together. Hank now has a new playmate with a wild amount of energy and Emmy is thrilled to have someone to chase around and play with, bat at, pounce on, etc.
It's wild to see the differences between these two cats. I think Emmy has grown in size a bit in just the short few days we've had her, but I don't know that she's on track to become a giant cat overall. Time will tell, of course. She does eat like a hog (to the point where I was curious as to whether they actually really fed her in the humane society -- that cat puts down dry kitten food like she's at an eating contest). Hank we did not think was going to become as much of a brick shithouse of a cat that he is, all bulk and muscle -- we knew he'd be big, but his size and weight has already exceeded our expectations and he's still got growing to do. He's not fat. He is a dense cat.
Empress, under her fur, is a tiny little thing. But she has long legs and she is a jumper. We never had to worry about Hank jumping up on counters or tables or any of that because, well, his legs are too short and he never expressed any sort of desire to jump or climb anything. Emmy will be a jumper and climber. We've already seen it. By herself she has already found her way to the top of the cat tree and has already started trying to sharpen her claws on any piece of furniture she can find. She is also the cat that goes into Wild Child mode at 3am, as evidenced by me hearing her, last night, tearing ass back and forth across the bedroom playing with her toys, jumping on and off things, and generally being a menace.
Daisy, by the way, slept through all of this, in the same room. I heard it from downstairs at my work desk.
We will have to begin introducing her to the house very slowly, in monitored brief outings, to see how she reacts to the boys outside the confines of the bedroom -- not to mention how she reacts to a house that is far, far larger than the little rooms she's been kept in so far, with thousands of things to get into and under and explore. Part of this will also be gauging how she reacts to the Golden Girls (as I call Maggie and Sadie) and how they react to her, too. I don't think they'll be a problem for each other but I also have been wrong about which cats I thought would be the problem, twice. It's all a process.
I expect the slow introductions to the outside world of our house to start this weekend, after she's had her first vet visit. For now, she's quite comfortable being in our bedroom most of the time. When I've gone in there to check on her she's almost always flopped out on the floor under the bed, where she seems to be very content and happy to sleep like a rock. She is well-taken-care-of, as she always has food, water, toys and clean litter, and she gets so much love from us.
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