Bringing a new member to the family

When you experience the loss of a pet, it can be pretty hard - especially if that pet has been part of your life for several years. When Bubbles passed away a few weeks ago, I was pretty torn up for several days, and not a day goes by that I don't miss seeing her. One typically doesn't think that when you give a pet a "forever home" that it's going to end at some point in the future. Denial is a strong defensive tool, and we will typically ignore the facts of reality until it slaps us upside the head. I know that we can never replace Bubbles, but we can open our hearts and home to another pet, and give it just as much love as the one we lost. Kathy went to the Decatur humane society the other day, just to look around and meet some of the cats. She wasn't expecting to have one of them pick her, but one did.

Alaina checking her new territory. Pardon the potato quality pic.

Yesterday, we got to bring home Alaina. She's about five months old, short-hair, with a classic marbled tabby-and-white coat. We tried introducing her to Holly last night, but there was a lot of growling and hissing; Alaina hid behind the TV stand, and Holly ended up heading for the basement. That was to be expected, considering how territorial cats are. We ended up putting the gate back up between the kitchen and living room (since Holly can't jump over it and Alaina apparently doesn't know how high she can jump yet), and draped a sheet over it so the two couldn't see each other. That calmed things down, Alaina perked up after that, and was more than happy to come out with a little coaxing. Given that she'd spent most of her life indoors in a cage, she seemed a bit overwhelmed by her new surroundings. We spent most of the evening comforting her in her new home, and she eventually curled up on the couch and napped a bit. We left her in the living room area overnight (gated off from the kitchen with the doors to the other rooms closed) so she could get used to the smaller space first. We also left the TV on, playing a DVD that the humane society gave Kathy that was supposed to be useful for pet-sitting. I think the noises from the DVD spooked her more than they helped her. When we got up in the morning she was hiding under the armchair in the living room, hunkered down in a box of cat toys that had been stashed under there. I think we may need to get a cat bed for her and line it with something that smells like her humans to help her sleep.

It's funny to see all the new things that a kitten experiences for the first time. We noticed a couple times she would hiss at apparently nothing, but then we realized that she was seeing her reflection in various shiny things and was thinking it was another cat! She also apparently wasn't aware of her ability to jump. Kathy coaxed her into jumping up onto the seat of the armchair this morning while playing with her, so I highly suspect we're going to come home tonight and find all kinds of things knocked off of the couches. I'm hoping she discovers the cat tree we put up for her and takes a shine to it. Right now it's just standing in the corner like a kitty stripper pole, and it looks a bit sad. Maybe if I get some dangle-y toys and staple them to the underside of the platforms to give her something to play with she'll take more of an interest in it, but I know acclimation to a new environment takes time.