Saturday 26 April 2014

On Madison

I'm a mummy again. My beautiful cat Madison came to live with me on 24th April 2014. Here's a photo of her.



I don't know a great deal about her background - just that her previous owners split up, and rather than fight over who got to keep her they gave her away. She also had another cat living with her. Although they tolerated each other they weren't friends, so it was fine to rehome them separately. She's seven years old, which made rehoming her difficult, but my last cat was seven years old when I got him, and a ginger, and he was the best decision I ever made.

Maddie is in need of some retraining. She can't yowl at me all night and expect me to get out of bed. The first night she was here I had to shut her out of the bedroom, because she woke me up at 3am and yowled repeatedly in my ear until I got up. I only got up to shoo her out the room, though. She'll have to learn that my alarm is set for an hour and half before I have to get up and snoozes every ten minutes, because getting me out of bed isn't easy. I leave her everything she needs before I go to sleep, so it's definitely an attention thing. Initially I planned to get another cat a few weeks down the line, but she got here first, and if she is going to turn out to be needy then I don't want to upset her by bringing another cat in. I'll have to see how it goes. Even though getting a kitten and training him or her to be a vicious ninja attack cat, and setting him or her loose on my upstairs neighbour, is a constant temptation.

I Googled how to deal with a noisy cat, and one of the suggestions was scooshing them with water. I suspect her foster parents tried this, but with a bottle that wasn't cleaned properly. Madison smells faintly of furniture polish.

So my home is once again full of cat toys and food and litter. And I couldn't be happier, even though there's some hard work ahead. I hope we can come to be friends, although I will always be in charge. I'm quite a strict cat mummy, but making her happy is my top priority. For now and for all the years I have with her. I consider myself very lucky, and I can only hope she will too.

2 comments:

  1. It's three o'clock in the morning and I hear someones running up and down the street. Hopefully they won't brake in to my place for their own good. I've got a means to protect myself from idiots so I'm not worried.

    Nice photo of Madison, Fran.

    I used to have a cat and let it go outside at nights. It wasn't a female cat so I didn’t have to spay him come February. But one night he didn’t come back home. I suspect the feral cats, my neighbour or his dogs are to be blamed for it.

    I felt like I'd lost a good friend and failed at responsibility.



    P.S.
    I wish he just decided to run away. And maybe he did.

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  2. My friend had a cat who didn't come back. She was spayed, too. There was a rumour about a big black van from Glasgow Vet School that used to go around picking up cats without collars for the students. I sincerely hope that isn't true.

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