Welcoming Some New Feline Members of Our Family

Ythran, you'll always be in my heart.

Some of you will have read my blog post last month when I lost my feline friend of 15 years, Ythran. I'm going to miss him for a very long time. I miss him coming in through the cat flap and meowing a greeting. I miss him coming to my chair and asking to be picked up and put on a cushion on my lap (he couldn't jump well in his later years due to only having one back leg). I even miss him going to the french doors and demanding to be let out right in the middle of a good movie! ;P He will be in my heart always.

It has been very quiet around the house without him and some people may think it is too soon, but we needed the presence of kitties again. So, three weeks ago, we went to The Happy Endings Rescue Centre, a wonderful place in the English countryside where I think they must take in any animal that comes to them (they have 27 barn owls from a private collection because they wouldn't say no :)).

Happy Endings Rescue are open from 2-4 everyday for people wanting to visit and see their animals for rehoming. We just turned up and they were so lovely. They took us over to see the cats, who were all looking very content. We were looking for a pair of cats, and I'd been to the Happy Endings website to look at their felines in need of homes.

Silver and Binx were the second pair of cats we met, and I have to say I instantly fell in love with Silver. A beautiful, petite silver tabby, she jumped up on a shelf to greet us and proved she loved a good head rub. Binx, her daughter, a little smaller still and completely black, was much more timid, hiding at the back of their pen, so we only got to nod to her that first meeting. That was it, though, we loved them and we arranged immediately for a home assessment.

Silver & Binx look around

Needless to say, everything went well with the assessment and exactly a week later we picked the girls up. They both fitted in the box that Ythran used to fill! And they were good as gold on the way home. Once in the kitchen, we opened the box and Silver was straight out, having a look around and very interested in the food we put down for her - in fact, she wolfed her own down and then started on Binx's food, since Binx stayed put in the box for a while, before making a dash behind one of our storage boxes (where she stayed all afternoon and evening). Silver, however, made herself at home, while going back and checking on her daughter from time to time and trying to call her out of her hideyhole.

So, it was a tentative start with Binxey, but she came out of her shell amazingly quickly. She made it upstairs that night with encouragement from Silver, and even came down for breakfast - it took twenty minutes of calling, but eventually she realised there was food at the end of the trip. And by Sunday evening, she even came into the lounge with all of us and explored the place. That's when the first picture above was taken. And she's been coming on leaps and bounds ever since. Until, a few days ago, we concluded both girls were feeling at home :).

Settling in!

It's going to take a while before we all get to know each other really well, but I think we're on to a good start.

Silver poses for a shot.

Silver, who is approximately 18 months old, is just a darling, such a sweet girl, and she has stopped gobbling her food, which she did for the first couple of days. On the first night, there was an incident with a quarter of a large steak and kidney pie we forgot about and left on the side, that wasn't there the next morning. How such a small cat ate so much, we will never know! She now seems sure she knows where the next meal is coming from, and she is eating normally, and the steak and kidney pie will not be mentioned again ;P.

Binxey feeling at home.

Binx is now running up to greet us, tail up in the air, but stopping short of accepting strokes, although sometimes she hangs on to her courage and her purr is like a traction engine when she realises she really likes a back rub :). She's only a kitten, about 7 months old, and she thinks the red dot cat toy is just the best thing ever! Given how affectionate she wants to be if she can only get over her nerves, I think she will eventually be a lap cat :D.

So these are our beautiful new girls, who are loved by all members of our family, including our dog, Nemo, who thinks they are wonderful. It's a new chapter in our household. Goodbye Ythran, my lovely, old fellow, you can never be replaced, but I hope you don't mind that I needed some new feline company.