Schrödinger

As I mentioned in my last post, Santa brought a new cat to our house for Christmas.  You may remember that we had to have Midas put to sleep at the end of November, so one of the things on Marxo's list to Santa was "a cat that looks like Midas".

Well, Santa delivered!

"A cat that looks like Midas"

Santa spent quite a bit of time searching on the internet for a suitable cat to satisfy this wish and he thought he was choosing a kitten, according to the picture.  The kitten turned out to be more of a cat, but Santa couldn't resist - this cat was very affectionate.

So, on Christmas morning, the new cat made his entrance to the house and the kids immediately named him Schrödinger, based on Dr. Carter's cat in Stargate SG-1.  (we had talked about using this name for our next cat...)

We were worried about how Spot was going to react to having another cat in the house.  She never did like Midas and she actually gave him one last hiss as I was carrying him out to the vet that last time.

I had heard somewhere that when you introduce a new cat to the household, you should keep the two separate for a couple of days.  The first day, you allow the new cat to "scent" whatever room you put him in and then the next day, you switch the two cats, so they can walk around and smell the other cat without seeing him.  Hopefully then when you allow them to meet, they won't be such strangers to each other.

Well, we tried that.  We kept Spot up in our room with the door closed for Christmas day and then the following day, we switched the two.

On the third day, we opened the bedroom door and let the cats find each other.  Wow!  Spot was PISSED!!!  She couldn't believe that there was suddenly another cat around the house to contend with!  She growled and hissed and screamed and yelled.

Meanwhile, Schrödinger just sort of looked at her.  He had come from a house that had 32 other cats living in it, so he was completely used to being around other cats.  But he took it in stride.  He let her yell at him and after a couple of weeks, he eventually won her over.

After about a week of being together, they started getting closer without attacking each other.  (but it was playful attacking - neither of them hurt the other)

Why are you here and what are you doing eating my food?!

And they got a little more relaxed around each other.

I may look relaxed, but I've still got my eye on you...

And now finally, they seem to be quite comfortable with each other.  They both like to sleep on our bed with us every night and I end up waking up most mornings completely sandwiched between the two of them.

Don't mind us, we're just playing here.

We're very relieved that they're getting along so well now.  They really seem to love playing together and they're about the same age, so they have the same energy level.  We're hoping for many happy years of friendship between these two.