Two and a half weeks in - Already? Is that right? Time flies. - the big guy is doing very well. He's hissing at us less and less - at this point he's just about stopped hissing entirely. Great work, buddy!
I've scheduled a clinic appointment to get him tested for FIV & FeLV, plus vaccinated and microchipped, at the end of the month. They can do the tests and vax him on the same day, which is cool. I honestly think it's a tossup; both FIV and FeLV are spread through bites, and he was getting in a lot of fights. We'll see. I'm not sure how cooperative he'll be, but I'm planning to give him some of the sedatives B gives Leia before her vet appointments. Hopefully that'll help.
He's getting cleaner. His head and neck still have that icky feeling/texture and his back paws are still tinged brownish greyish from dirt, but the rest of him is soft and clean. He's got a few small mats I'd like to trim, but nothing major. He's doing a good job bathing himself mostly. I got a bristlebrush and dry cat shampoo at the grocery store in the hopes that they would help with the yucky texture of his head/neck fur, but so far it's not done much as far as I can tell. He gets wiggly with them but doesn't seem to have strong objections to either. His scabs have mostly healed.
I think he's younger than I initially assumed; he plays like a kitten. I try to give him at least one play session every day, usually two - one earlier in the day and one at night. He loves the toy mouse on a string and will happily roll and run and jump and twist around midair chasing it. He has a lot of energy and isn't very good at burning it off himself. Or he just doesn't like playing alone? Not sure. He's got four toys attached to the cat tree, two knitted dice, and a fish plushie down here, plus about a dozen toy mice, and a decent amount of space to run around in, but it seems like he doesn't touch em when there isn't somebody waving them at him. I haven't seen him get the zoomies and run around, and he hasn't even tried to climb the cat tower even once. I've tried wiggling the hanging toys, putting catnip on it, wiggling the toy mouse on it, but he seems totally unmoved.
Like a kitten, he gets excited and wants to grab my arm and bite and kick and wrestle it sometimes. We're working on that. He's slooowly improving at resisting the urge to grab and bite my hand, using less claws, etc. He bites when he's overstimulated or annoyed, too.
He's prone to getting overexcited/overwhelmed/overstimulated; sometimes it seems like he doesn't know what to do with himself and he'll hiss or lash out for no obvious reason. He is neither especially angry/aggressive nor especially apologetic about this. It's been improving a lot over time, though. He's starting to feel more comfortable just walking away to lie down somewhere out of reach or hide rather than keep trying to hang out and getting more stressed. Emotional regulation progress!
I think it would help if he had more stuff to entertain himself with - besides the toys, which clearly aren't quite the ticket. Something I'm thinking about. B and I try to spend a good amount of time with him every day, but we both have our own cats and also other stuff to do in the rest of the house. Sometimes he fusses when I leave and I feel really guilty...
I'm worried he's not got enough entertainment down here, since there's no windows. I don't have a spare screen to give him a youtube loop, but I've been thinking about maybe one of those fake aquariums? Or trying to rig up something similar? I do have an aquarium-type tank I got for plants, but I'm not sure if it's watertight and I'm not sure where to get wiggly little toys to "swim" in it. I dunno. I feel like he's got a lot of restless energy, and the level of entertainment/intellectual stimulation in the basement is really really low compared to outside. Or even compared to a whole house. I don't want him to be bored, and my cat Seneca has always pretty much just slept all day so I'm not super confident in my ability to figure out what'll be helpful.
He still likes to stomp on my lap and flop on my chest and cuddle, but he isn't as desperate for attention/affection as he was initially so he's a bit less cuddly now. He spends more time flopping on the floor than trying to glue his body to my torso when I hang out with him. I think that's a good thing? I am hoping he feels reasonably secure.
He pooped and peed on the floor instead of in the litterbox two or three times and I'm not entirely sure why - he was still using the litterbox most of the time? But after I took the cover off the litterbox and it's only happened once since, so my tentative theory is that he wasn't super comfortable with the cover part. Maybe because he's so big.
Apart from that speedbump, he's been well-behaved and seems healthy. Particularly notable to me is his lack of crying, banging on the door, or escape attempts! Very much appreciated, that.
A couple folks on the 32-bit Cafe blog thread noted the lack of pictures. That is intentional; I do apologize, as he's very cute and your lives would be enriched by seeing him, but shall nonetheless continue not sharing pictures out of an overabundance of caution! I suppose I can release his name at this point, though. His name is Charlie!
Hmm, what else. Personality! He's a bit bossy and childish. He gets frustrated and overwhelmed easily, but doesn't hold a grudge. He's quite sociable and prefers playing with people over playing by himself. Likes to take up a lot of space. He's a sweetheart who means well, who loves to eat and to lounge. He adjusts quickly to new situations, but lacks problem-solving skills.
He's a really good cat. I'd be happy to keep him forever if we could, but even if he's healthy Leia couldn't tolerate another cat. He's going to be a great friend for someone.
He met a new person this Sunday - C came over and popped down for a brief visit. He hissed a lot, but didn't attack them, and he did approach them cautiously before scuttling back over to me for pats. No hiding, which is good. Seems like he'll still need time to adjust to new people. Not ideal, but could be worse. I think most people expect a cat to take some time to warm up to a new environment/person.
To be honest, three is too many cats for me, especially with the outdoor cats on top of it. It's a bit overwhelming. I want to make sure Charlie gets the time and attention he needs, and my own cat gets the time and attention he needs, and then any time I move around the house Leia is slapping me and yelling at me, and when I open the front door there's usually a cat meowing at me for food/attention on the porch... Some days I don't mind and I'm happy to have so many furry creature friends, but sometimes it feels like I'm failing all of them by splitting my attention like this. This week has been especially stressful, since my cat hurt himself and needs to be supervised while he's healing, which means less time for Charlie. I asked B to spend more time with him to make up for it, but they do need to be in their office for work most of the time, and they struggle with stairs a lot of the time, and they're pretty forgetful and Charlie apparently doesn't like them as much. Having to nag them about it doesn't really help with alleviating the stress of cat management since I'm still the one responsible for making sure he gets people time.
Right now, he's insisting he's not done playing but has decided the toy he's in the mood to play with is the very long stick that the mouse on a string is attached to. I don't know how to play with that with you dude. It's not flexible and it's quite large... literally he just slapped his paw on top of it and then stared at me. What do you want me to do with the stick.... I can't make it more fun, it's a stick...