Moving went pretty well. A couple pieces of furniture didn’t arrive in the same condition they started in, but the most significant of those is the short bookcase on wheels that I had under my desk which is now short by a wheel (largely because I didn’t unload the books from it, just shut the cover, so it was quite heavy). I’m hoping that I can just get some wood glue and stick it back on since it was the particle board coming apart that let the wheel fall off. I’m still far from having everything set up, and I haven’t finished moving my closet or kitchen from my apartment. At least now I’m down to a load or two of miscellany, though I may have to take emptied boxes back to make it reasonable.
My one problem so far with the house was that my shower was only warm on Saturday, then it was actually cold today, so I was worried about the hot water heater. It turns out it was just set on “vacation,” which apparently means it’s got warm water but isn’t really working hard to maintain that. I need to check the temperature the hot water heater in my apartment was set on, but I turned it up a good bit and it’s much better now.
Anyways, one of the things I was planning to do when I got a house was get another cat to keep Talore company, and this was the best picture of him that I’ve managed to take (the only way to get him to sit still while not rubbing against me is to be moving the toy, and moving that and taking the picture at the same time didn’t come out very well):
He’s 11 months old (not a kitten based on size, but still playful). He was listed as a lynx point Siamese mix, but the adoption people figured he was part Maine Coon (and having looked up Maine Coons he fits the description pretty well). He’s still a little bit smaller than Talore and a good bit lighter, but Maine Coons can keep growing till age four so he’s expected to be big eventually. I haven’t decided if I’m going to rename him yet, so for now I’m not including his name in this post.
The first rule of introducing a new cat to a home that already has a cat is to control first impressions. Unfortunately the new cat escaped from the bedroom I had him in within the first hour of being in my house (after I’d initially carefully shut Talore away so she wouldn’t even see me carrying the cat carrier). Talore was lying on my desk across the room and only caught a glimpse of him, so I figured I’d pen her in a closet for a couple minutes and go catch the new cat and return him to the bedroom without a confrontation. That probably would have worked well, except when I shut one side of the closet door with Talore inside the pole used to adjust the cover on the skylight fell, Talore got spooked, and she jumped past me and ran down the stairs. Of course she was already startled when she ran right into the new cat, and she hissed at him and kept running. I got him back in the bedroom right after that, but I’m worried that they’ll remember that encounter too well.
I was supposed to keep the new cat quarantined in his own room for about a week to let him get used to me, the smell of the house, and make sure he’s not sick. The experience of his escape means he’s not too keen on leaving the room now (though he’ll go to the door and look around when I have Talore shut in my bedroom and let him out). On the other hand, he’s been willing to come rub on me since I got him home, he’s very playful, and I suspect that if Talore hadn’t hissed at him he’d have no problem approaching her since he came from a large group of cats/kittens that the adoption place had. Talore hasn’t exactly been welcoming, considering she hisses at him under the door (both their food/water bowls are at the door that separates them so they’ll get used to each other), but once she accepts his presence hopefully they’ll be able to get along.
One suggestion for speeding the introduction of a new cat is to give both cats a bath with the same shampoo. The tub in my bathroom has a sliding door instead of a shower curtain so I figured that would be easy. Unfortunately I didn’t count on the new cat having quite such a strong aversion to water. He started struggling as soon as he saw me carrying him towards the tub (and the water in it), and unlike Talore he doesn’t like being held anyways and couldn’t be coaxed to stop yowling while in the water. He also nearly managed to start opening the door in his frantic attempt to find purchase on something and pull himself out. At that point I just let him out even though only his tail and legs were wet. I did dry him off and apply a little shampoo to give him that scent, but after thinking about it I wasn’t sure that I wanted to remind Talore of the smell of bathtime so Talore didn’t get a bath.
Talore is adapting pretty well to being in the new house, though she has been following me around pretty much all the time. As I typed that I realized that she’d gone upstairs while I was downstairs on my laptop, but it turns out she’s still keeping me in sight:
