Kitten Adopted Us!
Proud Matey
About two years ago, a little kitten arrived at out home. He was terrified and hiding under our deck. We finally got him out and determined that he was only 5 ot 6 weeks old. We had never had cats before only dogs.
At the time we had a two year old parti colored cocker spaniel -- black and white. We fed the kitten and decided to keep him as an outside cat. We knew absolutely nothing about cats!
I took him to the vets to have him checked out as it appeared that he was going to stay around. He had been lucky to survive whatever ordeal he had been in. His ear had been chewed on and he had several scratches. The vet said he was healthy and only about 5 weeks old. We scheduled him to be neutered and had all his shots.
He began to climb the kitchen storm door and watch us while we ate our meals. He was still very frightened outside. We later saw a coyote behind out house next to the woods, so we kept him in an outside storage building when we were inside the house and during the night.
He trained easily to a litter box, so we bit the bullet and decided to let him stay in the house. Our cocker, Sailor, took to him very well. Matey, the new kitten, was extremely playful, but still very skittish with strangers or loud noises.
His is almost two now and is a big cat. He weighs almost 12 pounds now and has a beautiful long coat. He is not a lap cat, but he will sit close by and loves Sailor. He tries to "clean" him every day. He is very independent and has a precise schedule that he adheres to. He does not like to have that schedule interrupted.
He has very expressive eyes and you can tell almost exactly what he is thinking. I still don't know why he is so afraid of strangers or loud noises, but if it is something that happened before he came to us, he certainly has a long memory!