Awww. I'd love to see the kitty. I love pix of pets & animals being cute almost as much as pretty dresses.
I adopted my current cats from the local animal shelter, but no matter where you adopt an animal from, you're saving them from potentially being turned out to the street, or put to sleep.
Mine & their mother were cared for at an off-site private home with other cats for the SPCA. After they were old enough to adopt, I had to pick them up at the SPCA after they got their checkup, shots, & got fixed, & pay for it. But it was a lot cheaper than getting cats from a private source & having to pay for all that stuff at an animal hospital.
I live in a building that doesn't allow pets. It's hard to find any nicer places cheap that allow pets too. They made an exception in my case because my cats & I had good references from where we lived before (call me a "preferred" tenant).
But because the property manager never met my old cats, he didn't know they passed away & I got new ones. He thinks they're still the same cats. So I couldn't adopt more than 2. In a smaller apartment it wouldn't go well to adopt any more anyway.
Originally I was going to adopt only 1 kitten out of the 4 of the litter, & their 1 1/2 year old mother (she was sweet). But after observing them while they were still too young to adopt, & going through all the pictures of them trying to decide which kitten to adopt, I noticed 2 that seemed to hang around & sleep together a lot. They even stayed together more than with their mother. So they had a bond that I didn't want to break, so I adopted them. They're a matched set.
Now that they're 3 years old, they occasionally like their separate space. They get very jealous for my attention too. They don't want to share my attention & let me cuddle or play with both at the same time. One or the other will always run off rather than share. I have to give them attention one at a time while the other sits there looking very pissed off or disappointed.
But if they want to play, & I can't at the time, they'll happily play with each other nicely. If I'm not laying around, they'll still frequently curl up with each other to sleep. Right now they're sleeping curled up around each other against my favorite pillow just 2 feet from me.
So they still hang out & cuddle with each other more than most pairs of cats. Being siblings from the same litter helped. But they chose to be closer to each other more than the rest of the litter since they were less than a week old.
They'll share sleeping & resting time with me. As soon as I lay down they'll run up purring, & pile up on or against me. They don't like to sleep alone, plus if I lay down they know that might be a good time to expect a nice brushing, back scratching, & belly rubs.
If I yawn & stretch they'll come running up too. Because I work at home, & have lots of hobbies, they know a yawn or a good stretch may indicate I might be about to take a break, & give them some attention.
After 3 years, they know a few words. They come when I call them, get off of or out of whatever when I say "out", know that "easy" means they're getting too rough, "careful" is a warning that they're about to do something wrong, "no" or "stop" means to stop whatever, & yelling or screaming means they're very bad. But language is really difficult for cats.
They naturally take their cues from sights, smells, & sounds, not language. Except for purring, a cat fight, or with their mother as kittens, or when a cat is in heat to alert potential mates, cats normally don't make sounds to other cats or other animals. This is a learned behavior as we try to verbally communicate with them, or as if they feel we are their mother, or mate.
Last week, while having a wonderful time chasing a moth (they've learn not to kill bugs right away or they can't chase them anymore), the girl took frequent breaks to run to me & her sleeping brother to meow at us to alert us about the moth. A cat won't normally walk up to another cat & meow to wake them up to play, or to share prey, yet there she was meowing at her brother to come play with the moth & her (cats love moths & butterflies).
I surprised how intensely they stare at my eyes & mouth when I talk to them. They're trying to interpret my facial expressions, what I'm looking at, & my smile more than my words. This staring behavior is usually used by a cat to determine if another cat wants to fight, back down, or may be a mate, or in farming cats & cat colonies to figure out if they are a friend.
When a dog, cat, or even a bird appear to be trying to smile back at you, they may indeed be trying to imitate your smile as best they can.
Body language plays a big role too. Sometimes before I do something, they already know, because of what I usually do right before it. I have breathing problems, so the cats have learned to ignore my breathing. But when I breathe in deep the way one does when one is about to say something, the cats have already turned their heads towards me knowing I'm about to say something to them. I'd tested it. I've inhaled the way I do when I'm gonna say something but without uttering a word, they stare waiting for me to say something.
When I shut down a computer, even if there's several on & the speakers are off, they come running, even before they've finished shutting down so the fans are still running. They come running knowing that if a computer shuts down, means a project ended, so they might get some attention. They're tuned into the faint (but familiar to them) sound any hard drive makes on any computer in the house during the shut down sequence. In the very beginning of the shutdown sequence, they've already ran to me competing for attention.
If I have a computer in to fix for somebody else, they won't come when I shut it down. So I guess they're only tuned into my computers. It would be interesting if I ever get around to replacing my wearing out hard drives, to see if they will still react to the different sounding drives going through shutdown.
I don't wear shoes in the house around pets so I don't accidentally step on them while they're constantly around my feet. They're either cutting right in front of me when I'm walking, or suddenly right behind my heels when I don't know it. Without shoes, I can feel them before I step down too hard, & soft feet will hurt less that a harder shoe or sneaker anyway.
So when I put on my shoes they look real sad, & curl up together on my favorite pillow because they know I'm going outside. It's their safe spot whenever they're frightened. They don't like me to leave them alone, even briefly. It terrifies them.
Topic: Adoption - Adult and "Imperfect" Cats (Read 8826 times)
