Friday, February 09, 2007

The new kids

About a month before we lost Pernicious, we adopted a kitten from the Town Lake Animal Center in Austin, TX. He was about 5 months old, and a classic orange tabby (the first non-tuxedo cat that my wife or I had ever owned). We named him Milo, and he has a sweet, friendly disposition; he immediately assumed that all the other cats would head-bonk and play with him.

Unfortunately, all the other cats are crotchety old grown-ups who don't appreciate being head-bonked by a kitten. Mishka adopted Milo and would groom and play with him, but it was clear that Milo was going to need a real playmate, and soon. So, about a month ago, we adopted a second kitten from TLAC, Lewis. He's a brown mackerel tabby, and fortunately he's not as assertive with the adults, so they don't hiss at him as much. He and Milo have bonded very tightly, however, and play constantly.

Here's Milo:
Milo

And Lewis:
Lewis

The only problems have been a wave of URIs running through the house (fact of life: shelter cats will have respiratory infections, and every other cat in the house will catch it). Everyone seems like they're on the downhill side of it, though, so hopefully we'll all be back to normal in another week or two.

We're convinced Milo helped Mishka deal with the loss of Pernicious. They were close, and we could tell that Mishka was having as hard a time as we were. He responded by adopting Milo, grooming him (whether Milo wanted to be groomed or not) and chasing him.

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