Bear Makes Five!

Yes. The rumors are true. We now have five, five, five cats at once.

We picked up Bear from the humane society on Jan 2. We had been haunting the local shelters since mid December, looking for an orange, fluffy kitten. Somehow, I had set my heart on such a kitty and infected Mike with the same longing. After three weeks of searching, we found Bear and, despite the fact that he was neither orange nor a kitten, fell in love.

According to Mike, Bear, reclining on the metal shelf in his cage, looked just like Princess Leia in her cell when Luke comes to rescue her from the Empire’s clutches, just prior to her execution. I suppose it’s an apt metaphor, because Bear had been at the shelter for three weeks and was probably scheduled for termination in the near future. Mike was Bear's Jedi knight in shining armor. I suppose I was someone dorky like C3PO. According to the tag on his cage, Bear was dropped off at the pound not because he refused to cooperate with Darth Vader, but because his owner’s house was “too small.”

Bear was filthy and smelled much like the Empire's trash compactor when we brought him home. A thorough brushing removed much of the dirt, but it took a bath to rid him of the last of the pound filth. Now that he’s clean and eating a higher quality cat food, his fur is rapidly becoming fuller and silkier.

Bear is adjusting well to the other cats. He stays far away from Cleo (as all the cats do). The babies (Tibbs and Zoro) and he have made aborted attempts to engage each other in play. I believe they will all become playmates once they learn to trust each other. There are still territorial issues to be worked out, but we see some progress every day. It took almost six months for Cleo to recover from the introduction of Mr. Tibbs, so we’ve learned to be patient when introducing new cats.

I haven’t told too many people at work about our fifth cat for fear of being labeled “the cat lady.” It is an entirely justified label, but I still find it a little embarrassing. Isn’t that the first sign of addiction: attempting to hide the problem? If so, then Mike and I are cat junkies and blissfully content in our kitty-addled state.