It's been over a year since our sweet Miss Katie died. She lived a long, happy life - 19 years! Marisol and Gerry have wanted another cat, but we told them we would wait until we bought a house. Then we thought it was best to wait until after the New Year since we had a 2 week trip to Florida planned.
Well, Mike was dragging his feet a little so I kicked things off a couple of weeks ago. A student canceled a class one Monday morning, so what better use of my time than to look at cute kitty pictures? Perusing the local shelter's website I found these two cuties. Everyone loved their pictures, so the kids and I kicked it into high gear!
First, began the negotiations. Both kids agreed to help pay for the expenses - adoption fees and supplies.
Next we started preparing our house. For Christmas Marisol received the book "Catification" by Jackson Galaxy (Thanks Aunt Teresa!) and she was all about making spaces for our kitties. We cleared the top shelf in the kids' computer room and ordered a cat tree (Christmas gift to Gerry - Thanks Aunt Laura!)
Reading Catification to me
Moving furniture to make space....
A safe space for kitties up high - food, beds, window gazing - away from hyper dogs and toddlers!
We were tracking our packages all week! The sooner we had our supplies ready, the less resistance from Daddy, and the sooner we could adopt! The pet door arrived Thursday and Mike installed it - he is always on top of projects, even when he has just a little bit of internal resistance. Best Daddy ever! :-)
I was upstairs napping with Carter on the Friday that the Cat Tree Arrived. I came down to find the big kids had brought the package in and started assembling - so fun!
Marisol put most of the cat tree together herself. There were several times she had to take things apart and do re-try, but between the written instructions and a video, it was pretty easy for her.
Cat tree assembled and in the perfect spot.
Marisol made some home made toys too!
A trip to Pet Smart and Walmart for some toys, and litter boxes, and we were just about ready!
Mike agreed to meet us at the shelter close by to look at some sweet kitties after work on Friday. It was fun and informative. The cats we thought we were interested in were shy and timid. They wouldn't come out of their enclosure to see us and hid. It was clear they would not be a good fit for our active family.
Fortunately, we had looked at other neighboring counties' shelters online, including the Nelson County shelter that was about a 45 minute drive away. We decided to visit on Saturday. From the descriptions we had a good feeling about a brother/sister duo the shelter called Granite and Gratitude. They sounded playful and confident.
We arrived at the shelter on Saturday prepared to adopt if they were the right kitties for our family. We had been driving around already for a couple of hours doing errands. The first thing we found out when we arrived was that the shelter does not do adoptions on the weekends because they want to do vet/reference checks on families. So that was a little disappointing, but it was clear pretty quickly that we had found our new furry babies. They came right out to see us and were such pretty kitties!
Without further ado, meet the newest May family members:
Cosmo and Stella
Brother and Sister
Almost 1 year old
Cosmo (Granite)
Stella (Gratitdue)
After a very long weekend (literally! Monday was MLK day) I called Tuesday morning hoping we could get someone before the 1 pm open time. No luck, but I left a message. We prepped the kids room for arrival, just in case we could go get them.
Kitty Welcoming Room Ready!
I called just after 1 pm and the shelter's manager had just got off the phone with our vet. She said they gave us an excellent reference and she was approving us! The only "red flag" was our dog. The shelter will refund you completely if you return the kitties within a month for any problems.
We were ready! Off we went with a quick stop at Walmart for another cat carrier and some food.
Stella was quite scared and seemed to be "hyperventilating" in the car. We tried to sooth her with soft words of encouragement.
Cosmo seemed cool as a cucumber, sitting facing out and looking us right in the eyes.
They were so brave right away!
Cosmo
Stella
They are very affectionate!
The kids brainstormed names and for a while we were leaning towards Albus and Minerva (Harry Potter inspired of course!) but in the end they liked Cosmo and Stella best. They seem to suit the kitties well!
And playful
Yoshi is excited but we've been giving them a safe place upstairs for now
Getting Brave and coming downstairs.
Play, eat, groom, sleep - kitty life is exhausting!
Carter isn't very interested... which is probably better for them!
They are doing so great! We are very slowly exposing Yoshi and the cats to each other. We feed them on opposite sides of a door, the cats have been downstairs when Yoshi is not present, and when she is they can come down if they want. They did a few times and that resulted in them running back upstairs pretty quickly! They are so acrobatic - they leaped right over the baby gate! Cosmo raced around the whole downstairs with Yoshi right on his tail.
Yesterday we put Yoshi on her leash and used treats and brought her upstairs. She was so hungry she didn't pay the cats any attention and they got to look at her. This morning Stella almost walked out onto the landing with Yoshi there. So they are making great progress and they are such happy, confident cats that we feel optimistic about Yoshi and them coexisting quite happily. Yoshi usually loses interest and is quite calm once she is used to new sentient beings. :-)
There you have it! Our eventful week.
They are playful, affectionate, happy kitties and the perfect addition to our family! We had so much fun preparing for them. I'm sure there will be more cute pictures coming.
