in summary:

the one who was withdrawn and unresponsive in the shelter and then took two people working together twenty minutes to wrangle her into a carrier (she did not want to be touched barely at all) had the easiest adjustment period ever; she's been here a week and is acting like she's been here a year. massive lovebug

the one who was all over me in the shelter and happily climbed into an unfamiliar carrier to go home with a stranger vamoosed into the basement ceiling rafters and has not come down since (she is eating, tho)

Queen in the castle

babies.

Ceiling cat is watching you

i set up a chair down here, and often when i sit in it she comes to the rafters right above my head, so she literally is

awww

at least you know she can get down and is eating... has she used the litter box, or are you going to have to start worrying about the smell down there?

no litterbox use yet (though she surely knows where it is by now; it's a small basement and you can see pretty much the entire floorspace no matter where you are), but no smell, either

tbh if she's going to piss outside the box, i'd rather it be in the basement than anywhere else. it's unfinished, so it's not like i hang out down here on the regular

very fair

concrete walls, concrete floor, shelving, heating/water equipment. garage-like vibes

she also watched me set up a box next to the stairs on the ground floor, so she knows that that's there, too

I showed Betsy pictures of your cats and she said she saw the resemblance to a phuduhudu

(i'm at two cats and five boxes rn. i'm giving them options. once they pic their favorite spots i'll pick up the ones they aren't using and use them as back-ups to cycle through so i can clean the others, etc. a couple are in places that are convenient and prominent for settling-in cats, but not places where i want a box long-term, so if they pick any of

those i'll do the "slow migration to a new spot" thing)

tricia868 lolllll i'm glad it's not just me!!!

i'm very glad i saved the name; it popped into my head for sameen claw out of nowhere and i thought "lol well, she's not very antelope-like right now, but it could be aspirational for when she loses weight", but it fits tiny baby girl so much better

i didn't want to definitively name either of them before i met them, and their arrivals were staggered by a few days due to some vet stuff; phuduhudu was in quarantine to make sure she was fully over a respiratory infection

peets

i have been back to petco three times to get more stuff for her. lil cat making me a consumerist

awwww

but cats deserve ALL THE THINGS

as the kids say, they slave away in the kibble mines so their pets can be upper middle class

today phuduhudu has:

- eaten all her wet food but snubbed the dry

- knocked some tiny empty boxes off a shelf and left them in a weirdly neat-looking pile on the floor

- pulled out one of the socks i left down there with a pair of shoes, leaving it a couple feet away from the shoes

i still have barely seen her lmao

she's exploring, though! She'll get there!

lol... try leaving a trail of treats up the stairs? Or a catnip toy at the top of them?

Fuzzytale oooh, treats are a good idea

i considered sprinkling catnip in the carrier (i don't necessarily want to get her in it, but i want her to think of it as a bed/den rather than just a thing that transports her places, though she wasn't freaked by it the way sameen claw was), but haven't yet

and the shelter did send me home with some treats that i haven't wanted to give to sameen due to her diet issues

i put out a couple on day 1 that she ignored, but that was before she'd come down for food

last i saw they were still where i left them, but ngl i forgot i put them out and haven't checked in a bit

Her sleeping face is so cute!

aaaah, Sameen is clearly more than ready to be a pampered and beloved princess, so happy for you both

she wasn't even asleep here haha, she was fully rolling around and headbutting me

if i pulled my hand away she'd start batting my leg with her paws

awwww

love

willie and chessie, cats of bygone years:

<333 they're all such good kitties.

I'm so glad to see Sameen SO comfy. Sounds like she's going to be a real cuddlebug. And Phuduhudu is working on the comfyness.

Sameen settled in SO FAST

astonishingly so

i'm frankly shocked; it's such a turnaround from her shelter behavior

which is always to be expected to some extent! but i was assuming her warming-up period would be on the scale of months, possibly years

(which i do feel uniquely equipped to deal with, because i grew up around chessie, who took a literal decade to consistently allow physical contact)

phuduhudu is continuing to eat her full meals on the landing, and i'm going to try to jay's treat idea today

she's still in the ceiling primarily, but every time i come down to sit in the chair i've set up, she shows up like clockwork in the rafters above my head

she also doesn't mind when i look at her! we're still exchanging slowblinks and her vibes are still chill (as they have been this whole time, tbh; i still don't think she's properly skittish or fearful, just cautious about the new space)

I'm going to start keeping a running tally if things people have misheard or misremembered phuduhudu's name as

poodle hoodle

poopoo doodoo

puma

LOL, amazing XD

overnight she ate all the treats except for the one at the very top of the basement stairs, ate all her food, pulled a toy out of the carrier

progress!

aw yay!

maybe put a little pile at the top next time--extra incentive for that last step?

she used the box, whoooooo

it's possible she's been using it for the past few days and i only just noticed, idk, i'm still getting used to this litter type

yaaaaaay

this is absolute proof that she's been on floor level, though so that's good. the basement is pretty small, and i'm guessing the sooner she explores the whole thing the sooner she'll get bored and come out

good kitty!

she is SO comfortable there

it's amazing

I'm trying to read and she wants to lick my face so much

what a sweetheart

she wants to groom!

Not gonna lie, that fourth photo is a little scary LOL. Her expression is like, "Touch me and I'll bite your face off"

she has a little bit of resting bitch face sometimes

poodle hoodle is a perfect name even if it's wrong

I kind of love Poodle Hoodle

right?

new nickname unlocked

aww I'm so happy, she's already on the lap and has claimed you for her own. <3

SO much running around chasing her fuzzy ball this evening

she likes and will chase the other balls i got her, but the little one from the shelter is the only one i've seen her play with spontaneously

phuduhudu is still doing her thing. she has zero issues with people coming down and gawking at her tho; i brought two people down to see her today and she appeared in her viewing spot both times

lol

you brought her exhibits to view

pretty sure that's how she sees it, lol

she is very comfortable lounging up there

i've met skittish cats; when they realize they're being perceived, they skedaddle. she does not

got a second den bed for the TV room and so far, it seems to exist primarily as an obstacle to getting behind the couch

Babies

Pillow!!!

dosing her up on gabapentin for her vet visit tomorrow

Ganbatte

We did that for one of our cats and the bastard powered through it, then came home and napped like a king immediately after

rip........ i have no idea how it'll go and still think it's a possibility that i'll have to call the vet and say "yeah so i tried to get her in the carrier and couldn't manage it and she's been under the couch for two hours, sorry"

i don't remember the dosage they prescribed off the top of my head, but she got the contents of two pills mixed into her dinner, and is getting the contents of two more two hours before the appointment time

I've had to do that, too I find it best to grab and stuff as quickly as possible. have the carrier readied TONIGHT

Misty gets heavily dosed with gaba too. she gets hers liquid form, and she gets at least 3ml at... .5/ml I think? I can check the bottle

I've just started leaving their carriers out and about. Sometimes I find them hiding in there on their own. It gives them less to be suspicious about than if carriers only come out for Scary Time.

yeah I leave the carriers out all the time, too

yup, hers has been sitting open in the hallway since i brought her home! it's a nice softsided one with a bed inside, too

she's rubbed against it a few times but i haven't seen her get back in it

Maybe if you toss treats in it? 👀

i'm limiting her treat intake because of the obesity issue, but i'll try catnip!

Ooh nip is good too!!

she showed real interest in verdi for the first time this morning, in that she got up close to the cage and he came prancing over to the bars and she sniffed in his direction, recoiled slightly, and walked away

well, she's in the carrier over an hour earlier than she needed to be, but she is IN THE CARRIER

she did not eat her gabapentin'd wet food overnight, and she did not eat the second dose this morning; she always ate the wet food with musinex mixed in just fine, so i'm wondering if she can smell the gabapentin

but i'd sprinkled some dry food into the carrier last night alongside some catnip around the entrance, and after rejecting the wet food for two hours straight she went after it, so i was like "welp, time to shoot my shot now" and closed her in :')

i'd wondered if she'd freak out once she realized she was trapped, but she's still SO chill (granted, she was chill during the ride from the shelter, too; it was only getting in that was an issue)

-- but after chatting with the vet we're not going; based on her behavior with vets as described in her medical history from the shelter, they only want to see her when she's been gabapentin'd up, for the sake of her stress levels/staff safety/me not having to pay for a visit in which she wouldn't allow herself to be examined

so we're going to try gabapentin compounded into treats that smell like other things, and if that doesn't work then orally-administered liquid

and she at least got the experience of being closed in her carrier and then let out ten minutes later without a scary trip involved :')

I like your vet

they're very good!

they were also the vet we used for all the dogs/cats when i was growing up, and over the years they've had a 100% staff turnover rate (minus one of the receptionists, who has been there since i was literally 13), but i'm glad the "animal comfort and quality of life comes first" philosophy is still in place

i told them she was in the carrier and relaxed and i was willing to bring her in to see how it went, and they said "nope, better safe than sorry, it might go just fine but if it doesn't then it'll make the next time scarier for her"

and i just tested her with more dry food in the carrier to see if she wouldn't fall for it after i closed her in last time, and nope, right back in with no hesitation

so that's good to know

i like your vet

Oh yeah, gaba's bitter so mixing it with food doesn't always work. We have to pill Sam a very specific way so he doesn't have time to bite the pill and decide to spit it out or hide it in his lips instead of swallowing.

We have to crush the gabapentin very fully and usually only mixing it with churu or really stinky wet food tricks them all

they had me just empty the capsules into her food and mix it in - but apparently the chews don't actually taste like gabapentin, so

here's hoping

Idk if it can be a liquid compound but some meds can and you can add a flavor to make them more palatable

But it sounds like you have a good vet, they don't wanna waste everybody's time and stress out the lady for no reason

yeah, anything i can get to eat herself is my favorite option, but i do feel a bit more confident that she'd let me shoot liquid into her mouth now than i did a week and a half ago

she's so much more chill and affectionate here, but then again, she's a very opinionated lady! yesterday she was lying on my lap and letting me pet her all over, but then hissed at me when i moved a blanket in a way she didn't like

(i wanted to put it under her front paws so that she was flexing her claws into it instead of into my leg )

No, must touch hooman without barrier

APPARENTLY

She needs to knead you spikily

I only get gaba in liquid form and Misty eats it in her food just fine. Momo wouldn't, though. Misty will eat anything

I do find that getting a liquid into a kitty's mouth just orally is much, much easier than a kill or capsule though

kill=pill

yeah, I'm giving Bill liquid antibiotics atm, and to be fair, he's SUPER easy to pill also, he's just incredibly calm and compliant, but the liquid is even easier

just squirt it down the throat, lmao. I can see it

We had some foster kittens once that were not super into people yet but needed dewormer and such and the only way I could get one to take it was to get her real mad and spitting at me (by virtue of just beijg Close) and once her mouth was wide open hissing I could shoot the little syringe right in there

She was always like angry face!! Licking and hissing!! But it worked ;-;

One of our cats will just reject it if you do the syringe thing, it has to be in the food :|

I wonder if liquid in food is less bitter/more palatable than powder in food

it's certainly worth a try

I'm glad she's at least pooping some, using the box without issue, and eating normally, meaning the need for a vet visit isn't as dire as it was in the shelter, when she didn't poop for four days straight and was peeing in her bedding due to a bad uti

she peed outside the box here once, on day two, and I still think that was because she didn't like where I had the boxes more than anything

oh and in phuduhudu news - i've been slowly migrating her food closer and closer to the basement door, and she comes to eat it every time; we are now at the top of the basement steps

now that sameen claw is exploring more of the downstairs, i've been closing the basement door when there's food in phuduhudu's dish to make sure that sameen doesn't come partake of it for her, so once the dish officially moves out of the basement i'm going to have to gate off the hall

which might require a weird makeshift two-gate solution, since the entrance is wider than a standard door, but i'm not too worried about that; sameen has not shown much willingness to strongarm her way through artificial barriers

me last night: "oh noooo how will I block off this hallway, the opening is too wide"

me now: "... oh, right. duh."

it's not locked in place because I only want it there when phudu has food in her dish and I'm not home too watch sameen, but I'm fairly confident that sameen isn't the type to knock it down even though she technically could

(it's very light, because part of my requirements for temporary cat barriers was "it's not heavy enough to hurt them if they fuck around with it and it falls on them")

ohhhh man i'm going to resist the urge to go check, but i suspect phuduhudu may be making an appearance downstairs; verdi is making all his "i'm trying to attract a friend" noises, and sameen claw is up here with me

he only does this when there's an animal in the house or deer in the yard

fingers crossed

she may be a chonk, but it looks like she's a playful, happy, energetic chonk, who thinks those stairs were a personal gift

I love when cats are playing and they get that look like they left the stove on

lmaoooooo same

(on both counts)

oh. clearly those stairs are the best

Sameen loves the stairs

Come meet her new best friend: the stairs!

they're going to end up sooooo scratched up; oh well

ten days ago her food was at the bottom of the basement stairs; now we're here

nice! Progress!

Progress!

she made a brief appearance when I was watching TV in the living room last night, but didn't hang around long

as unideal as the ceiling hideout situation is (she's not unsocialized, she was SO affectionate in the shelter, and I think if she'd ended up choosing a more accessible place as her domain she'd have been willing to let me touch her within a couple days), it's working out weirdly well for the two cats

phudu's home base is the basement, sameen's home base is the upstairs hall/offshoot rooms, and the ground floor is neutral territory

phudu largely stays in the basement during daylight hours other than coming up for food, and I gate the downstairs off from sameen during the night and whenever phudu has food in her dish; phudu explores the ground floor in the middle of the night and sameen usually comes down at least once during the day, so in addition to the

bedding scent exchange they're getting whiffs of each other in that neutral space

I haven't directly seen phudu doing her exploring, but sameen generally does an exploratory lap or two and then heads back upstairs when she's ready to settle down

last night they looked at each other from across the house, then both immediately retreated to their respective zones lmao

did a blanket swap, phuduhudu followed her own scent up, sameen was a bit miffed at her presence but is now claiming said blankets as her own

phudu is also a little escape artist; she was not meant to follow her own scent up, but she houdini'd past the separation gate somehow

oh hey phuduhudu, I hear you like being at ceiling level

I unfortunately couldn't find one that was this tall that had a hidey-hole at the top, so this will have to do

me: "i bet sameen claw won't go further than the second level at most; i'm not sure she could with her weight rn, she's pretty unwieldy"

sameen claw:

Big explorer!!

what a good adventure kitty!

i don't have my phone up here so i can't take a photo, but sameen claw is lying on the floor, using a cardboard scratching post as a pillow. this is despite the many soft surfaces at her disposal

cats

I would like to be as comfortable in my nice, soft bed in my temperature controlled home for 5 minutes of my life, as every cat I've ever seen can be lying on sharp gravel on a 100+ degree bed

also lmao i just noticed the tail motion blur in half the pictures from last night

i swear to god she wags it like a dog

so that happened

shitty pictures because I was doing it one handed while she continually jostled my arm lmao

when i walked away from the first shelf she hopped over the second to follow me

awwwwww

yay, she's starting to venture a little way out of the ceiling to see you!

i have occasionally offered my hand, and this is the first time she took me up on it

she's so all-or-nothing, lmao; there was no tentativeness at all

oh but she is so pretty! I love the pastel torties

every other time before this it was "no thanks", today it was "OH GOD YES PLEASE"

she is so teeny

6lbs to sameen's 14

as i told my vet, they are both the largest and the smallest cats i've ever had

she kept positioning herself like she wanted to jump down on top of me, so i tried lifting her down, which she let me do; she rubbed her face all over my face, groomed my nose with her tongue, settled on my shoulder like a fuckin parrot, and then when i went to sit down in the chair i have down there, used my chest as a springboard to leap up onto the

shelf again

clearly she is not on board with this "being less than five feet off the ground" nonsense

what a delightful plurk to read through

it amuses me because when abigail came home she would stay only low to the ground

it took her over a month to get up onto my bed… it was enough that i thought she might have some mobility issues. no. she just didn't want to get up high.

eepy. fucked off back into the rafters

elsinore the other one, sameen claw, is like that! the very first spot she chose was under a chair, and the highest she's settled down to sleep was the seat of a couch

her favorite spot currently is a cave-like bed that's under a small end table

cats are so funny. abigail stuffed herself into the tiny vcr shelf in a media console so i suppose that tracks.

came upstairs, did a lap around the living room. a week ago my plan was to shut off her access to the basement at the first opportunity because i'm not wild about her running around the rafters completely inaccessible even though i know there's nothing dangerous or bad up there, but it's been long enough that i don't want to cut her off from her chosen safe

zone until she's more comfortable on the ground level

she was looking up the stairs to the second floor and chirping, but didn't try to go up. she's definitely more interested in sameen claw than sameen claw is in her at this point, but she's not pushy at all, and sameen in turn isn't confrontational; she'll let out a little growl of displeasure when phudu gets too close, and then phudu immediately retreats

they've still only come fully face to face once, by accident; my dumb ass should really have predicted that phudu would climb the gate like it was nothing

she probably could knock down the shoji screens if she put serious effort into it, and she could definitely claw through them, but so far she hasn't shown that level of determination to get to anywhere that i've blocked off from her

even if she clawed through them, she'd then have to climb the screen, continually clawing new footholds for herself as she went up. feels unlikely unless she was legit desperate

awww, yay!

coming out for lovings

bro I need to get up... bro.........

she is so willing to scold; i moved my legs and she hissed at me <3

apparently those were HER ankles that she was resting on, not mine; my mistake

But look how cute she is, how can you scold that face?

You move legs from baby cat??? Abuse!

what a happy kitty <3

and that was as far as she felt like going at the moment, lol

SO MUCH PROGRESS!

they just spent five minutes watching each other from across the house (sameen claw on the stairs, phuduhudu in the entryway to the basement)

it was peaceful and their body language was pretty neutral, if watchful/ on alert (sameen hissed once but that was before she went up the stairs), but I had to put my store run on hold until they were done and I could put the screen back up

awww! she went to the floor for pets :3 and Sameen Claw is just a huge lovebug.

she sure is

I'm really impressed with both of their progress and adjustment

sameen claw living up to her name: she went from happily soliciting pets to giving me a miffed protest mrrrrowwwww and shoving me away, despite zero changes to my petting style. very opinionated

aaaah, what GOOD BABIES

and Sameen Claw has such perfect noseliner

omg she does

laughing forever at noseliner

crimes committed overnight

guess this is going in the closet now

someone's hungry XD

honestly closer than I planned to let them get at this juncture, but they're both being chill about it so I'm rolling with it

Cat tree working as intended I see

YUP

nice!

sameen claw is watching her walk around the living room with zero protest

she growled once about ten minutes ago when phudu got too close to her (and phudu immediately backed off; she'd been walking past rather than aiming for her)

-- oh nvm lol she's growling now because phudu is using the box that she likes

gay baby jail

awwww, poor baby wants company

PHUDU ON THE STAIRS

and not the basement stairs!

fam she is so hard to take pictures of because she wants the full attention of both my hands

both cats are fine with me petting them even when i smell like the other

yaaaaaaay, lap Phudu!

this is what i meant when i kept saying i didn't think she was skittish or fearful, lmao

there was no tentative "trying to decide whether or not i trust you" period, no incrementalism, just "nah, i'll hang up here in the ceiling; you can look at me, though! " to "TOUCH ME FOREVER" in less than three days

like i guess the ceiling period counts as trying to decide whether or not she trusted me, except her body language was never scared, and also she was exactly like this in the shelter before i brought her into a new unfamiliar environment

donna was like "omg i'm shocked she's letting you touch her this much???" but i seriously am not

what an excellent kitty

she did push sameen claw's boundaries a bit in that she full-on attempted to follow her when she was walking past at one point (sameen chose to pass within three feet of her when she was sitting on the couch, so phudu decided to shoot her shot), but sameen gave her a swat and they both separated willingly and within five minutes they were relaxed and

calm with phudu downstairs and sameen upstairs

phudu is very clearly hoping to be friends and sameen just as clearly isn't sure how she feels about that, but sameen is willing to scold and phudu is willing to back off when scolded, and the only real potential problem area i can see is how easy phudu finds it to get around barriers

i'm making the stairs progressively harder and more annoying for her to get past, but they're designed in a way that's pretty impossible to close off completely, so when i'm gone for longer periods i think i'm going to confine sameen to one of the offshoot rooms with actual doors - she's much more sedentary and 95% of her time she's in one or the

other anyway, so it wouldn't really be a change for her

case in point

smooshy

I'm so happy Phudu has progressed to couch lap cat

haHA she tried to get through the barrier and failed

i'm not sure whether it was a "tried as hard as she could and genuinely couldn't", or "tried a little bit and gave up", but either way, sameen's safe zone is not penetrated

ah, the "there's food in there!!!" crimes

the box serves two purposes: to discourage her from jumping up onto the bannister, and to alert me if she jumps up on the bannister, because there's no way she could do it without knocking it off

most of the time when I try to take a picture of her, this happens

give affection to tiny cat

assignment accepted

you really did manage to adopt 2 cuddlemonsters

her last name needs to be underfoot, too

awwww

she'll weave around my legs and dart in front of me and then hiss at my shoes if they touch her

she also has the squeakiest baby meow

playtested a few toys with phuduhudu. she tried to whole-ass take the feathered wand toy and walk away with it, so I went and got a feathered ball that sameen hasn't shown much interest in

phudu proceeded to snatch it up and run into the basement with it

she took it up into the rafters but brought it with her when I invited her down onto a shelf

awww, happy baby

i ended up taking it away from her because she was full-on chewing on it to the point that little feathers were coming off, and i don't want her to ingest them she can have it back with supervision

(something i probably should have predicted when she tried to carry the feather toy but OH WELL LIVE AND LEARN)

she's now chewing on a cloth toy with crunchy material inside

omg phuduhudu loves verdi

she's very talkative and one of his favorite sounds is meowing, and twice now i've witnessed her sitting next to his cage as they meow back and forth at each other

my ideal was for both cats to completely ignore him, which sameen has largely live up to, but i'm cautiously okay with this

she put her front paws up on the cage once, but even though i still made her stop immediately it wasn't an agressive move; she rubbed her cheek against the bars

verdi was surprisingly chill about it, but when she put her nose against the bars he banged his beak against them, which is his "back off" move

whenever he meows she comes running, though

awwww

I'm not really surprised from his end; head
he's always liked cats

she was sprawled out under his cage for a bit this morning

lmaooooo i'm upstairs and i can hear them doing it right now

he's going to pick up her meow quick; his current meow sounds more like me imitating him back than it does a proper cat meow (strangely, his dog bark is still on point tho)

sameen shaw meows on occasion, but is much quieter overall

that's so adorable, gonna be buddies

i do hope she doesn't continue the habit of fully standing up against his cage, but i still don't fear for his safety even if she does; it's big enough that if she DID attempt to go after him he could easily evade her both vertically and horizontally, especially since his wings aren't clipped

it's also big enough that she would be physically incapable of knocking it over or breaking into it. i as a human with manual dexterity at my disposal would be physically incapable of bending those bars

his mesh carrier backpack is a different story, but i never leave him in there unsupervised

also I can't get a picture because every time I come at her with my phone she comes out to inspect it, but. this is her favorite first-floor spot. far and above the cat tree

I guess it does kind of have that rafter vibe

she likes small places

and aw they’re talking

her ear.....

She looks so green

do you have to bop between floors to make sure they both get their snuggles

yes lmao

sameen claw is allowed downstairs because phuduhudu is completely unbothered by her presence in her space, but phudu is not allowed upstairs

nonhoration i love my colorful lighting <3

ah, verdi's throwing efood for phudu and she's eating it cool, that's definitely why i buy bird food

*food

Jukebox for meows

LMAO

hahaha VINDICATION

even before I told Neighbor Donna (who comes over a lot and will therefore see the cats a lot) phuduhudu's name, I warned her that she wouldn't like it, but that I was absolutely firm on my choice

and just as I thought, she didn't like it and has been using a lot of nicknames for her

but this morning when I saw her, she told me she'd googled phuduhudu antelopes last night

"and I burst out laughing, because hannah, SHE LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE A PHUDUHUDU"

HA!

I still think it's funny that it popped into my head out of nowhere for the completely wrong cat. it came to me when I was considering options for sameen and I was like "that's strange, it doesn't fit her at all"

and then I met this one and was like "oh holy shit"

He’s feeding her...

he used to do it to the dogs, who were equally happy to partake