Kittens!
By Meet Luca (Luciano Pavarotti)
and Jose.
Luca is probably going to be longish-hair, and Jose is very much Zooey’s mini-me. It is Luca in my earlier post, no AI.
My last six months have not been fun, started off with a hot water tank rupture that requiired a major rework of the kitchen and utility room floors. Just as that was finishing up, Ric died in a sad sequence of events.
Ric and Zooey were bonded kitties when I got them from the Santa Fe Shelter in 2017. They were picked up together by Animal Control and were probably brothers. They were estimated to be two and a half years old.
So Zooey (and, if I’m honest, I) was very lonely. I contemplated the math of three-way interactions versus much less interesting two-way ones and that Ric had allowed me to be a friend when he was wary of others.
The Santa Fe Shelter cat program seems to have collapsed. They had only two cats, one of them a barn cat. I turned to a privately run organization that seems to have a monopoly on cat adoptions in Santa Fe and ran straight into a welter of human mental health issues.
Albuquerque Eastside Shelter was next, with the help of a Balloon Juice commenter I’ve gotten to know in person, who volunteers there. Telemachus is a beautiful and intelligent animal, but a bit too much face to face for Zooey. I had to take him back. He will be a great only cat for someone, or perhaps in a family with dogs.
Last Saturday, Española Humane Society had an event at a Santa Fe movie theater. Luca and Jose were there. Luca and Jose were fostered together but I think are not sibs.
The kittens rapidly made themselves at home. Zooey has been interested but has tried to instill proper respect in the children by hissing gently and swatting when they get out of line. He’s shown no hostility at all and even allowed them to bully him out of a Churu. I have given him extra love and assurance that he will always be the Big Cat.
The kittens admire him immensely and have made some attempts at play.
He has been observing the kittens closely. Thursday morning he greeted them when I let them out of their room. Later I saw Luca stalking him and then Zooey running with Luca chasing. No good photos, they do all the adorable things just out of my sight or too quickly, but here’s one from Thursday.
The kittens are around two pounds each, and he’s thirteen, so this is a tricky business. I am so glad things are finally working out.
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