It's a beautiful Monday morning. Brooklyn is experiencing spring! The meteorologist is promising temperatures in the mid-60s and we have a cloudless bright blue sky. Everyone's spirits seem to be uplifted by the wonderful weather.
Annie's energy levels are back in force. She's happy, energetic and playful. For the first time I can see she is back to her old self. Orphée is so adorable. His personality emerges more each day as he becomes accustomed to life as part of an indoor family.
The big surprise of the day occurred when I woke up to find Orphée sprawled out at the foot of my bed. All four paws in the air, belly exposed and looking for all the world like a discarded stuffed toy there he was sound asleep. This is a momentous event as anyone who has taken in a outside cat will attest. Orphée is letting down his guard, becoming more comfortable with both me and Annie.
At the moment the pecking order on Orphée's likability scale is as follows:
Artie
Barbara
Annie
Artie is definitely Number 1 in Orphée's estimation. When Artie's around Orphée follows him like a faithful puppy. When Artie comes home from work, Orphée runs to the door to greet him. Me? Forget me, when I approach Orphée to pick him up he runs away. He talks constantly to Artie. When Artie's not here, he talks out the window to the ferals; he doesn't talk to me unless of course it's time to eat or his food dish is empty. At those moments of great concern he will seek me out, talk a bit then sit patiently watching to make sure I do his bidding.
Poor Annie loves Orphée desperately and is doing her best to make friends. She misses Buddy. They were pals playing together, eating together, sharing food and water bowls, sleeping together. Buddy would let her sniff him; Annie would let Buddy lick her face. I know my sweet girl misses him very much. Orphée's having none of this. He eyes her suspiciously, when she runs around he hisses and swipes at her. A few times we thought he was getting ready to chase her in a bid for domination; we broke it up. We've also had to break up the occasional staring match.
So where do we stand? Annie has learned to give Orphée a wide berth, she will change direction instead of trying to get him to move out of her way. I'm not happy with this but for now we're working with it. Both of us will continue to work with Orphée until he learns to tolerate Annie, staying calm when she runs or barks. Don't get me wrong there is a definite improvement in Orphée's behavior since we took him in but we're only half way there and I can't wait until we have a totally normal fully integrated household again whatever that is!
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