Written March 29–30, 2004
Joe has wanted a cat since before we moved here. The day after we moved into our house, he asked if we could get a cat. “Oh no!” I exclaimed. “We just moved in here, and everything is a mess. It’s entirely unsafe for a cat. Let’s wait awhile, until we’re settled in a little better.”
A friend of Wendi’s had kittens that were born on February 7. She told us that we could have one of them, once they were litter trained.
Wendi’s friend was here after 8 p.m. with three of her kittens. Joe picked out a gray, black and white female tabby which he named Shadow. We were all up past 11 p.m. with the newest addition to our family.
Shadow woke us up at 2:40 a.m., meowing loudly from inside the box we had placed her in. Wendi and Joe were up with her until 3:50 a.m. She gave them only 40 or 45 minutes’ respite before starting in again. The fussing continued until Charlie finally got up at 5:55 a.m. Now we were all up for the day.
Shadow kept getting stuck in the cloth below the love seat. I removed the loose cloth and an extra board that served no purpose. The underside of the love seat was full of cobwebs and dirt, which I cleaned out as well.
Shadow disappeared sometime between 4:00 and 4:30 p.m. and could not be found anywhere. The house had been closed up. One of Joe’s friends came over around 7 p.m. for an overnight stay. He helped us look for Shadow, but to no avail.
We were up until 12:30 a.m. but there was no sign of Shadow anywhere, except that Joe and Wendi said they heard an occasional muffled meow.
At 1:15 a.m. Wendi awakened to the sound of a meow in the living room. She turned on the light, and there was Shadow, standing in the middle of the room. She seemed a little scared and hungry but was otherwise OK. At this point we still didn’t know where she had been. Apparently she had hidden somewhere and fallen into a very deep sleep.
Shadow was missing again. She emerged from the shadows at about 12:30 p.m. for about an hour, then vanished again—into the wall behind the washer, in the mud room!
She came out just as Joe came home, at 3:48 p.m. I promptly placed a board in front of the door from the kitchen to the mud room, to prevent Shadow from entering. I also closed the other door to the bedroom. It worked. Soon I may fashion some boards to seal up the hole in the mud room wall.
Sealed off the hole in the wall behind the washer in the mud room; finished at 5:24 p.m. Shadow came in a bit later and meowed loudly when she realized that she couldn’t get into the wall anymore.
As I worked in the kitchen, Shadow crawled into the cabinet, so I put her in the mud room and placed a board in the doorway as a barrier to keep her from coming back into the kitchen. We had been doing that lately during mealtime. Guess what? Shadow meowed loudly several times, then leapt over the barrier!
Read the account of Shadow’s surgery in our News Archive. The account continues into the next day.
We registered Shadow with the City of Janesville and received her tags.
Yesterday we got another kitten. A family in Janesville had several of them to give away. We chose a long-haired, orange-colored male. Wendi is seen here, holding the new kitten, which we named Sunny.
Shadow was not happy when we brought him home. She growled and hissed vehemently at the new arrival, as if to say—in the words of a friend of Wendi’s—“You let an alien into my house!” We are told that it may take a couple of weeks before the two kittens get along with each other.
Already this morning, Sunny had to be taken to the vet. He was crying and wouldn’t walk on his right front paw. Wendi feared that Shadow may have attacked him in the night, but the doctor said that wasn’t the case. Apparently he had jumped down, landed wrong and fractured his right wrist. They gave him a splint that he will need to wear for three weeks. They also gave him his first distemper shot.
So far, our new “free” kitten has cost us $93.68. Oh well; such is life.
Shadow had a cold (October 9) and an eye infection (October 18)
When we arrived back at the house (after shopping) sometime around 2:30 p.m., one of the Christmas trees was lying on the floor. Ornaments were strewn everywhere. The cats somehow managed to tip it over, despite the 20 lbs. of weights on the stand! To avoid further holiday disasters, I took down both Christmas trees with their ornaments, garlands and lights, and put them away for the season (4:40–6:10 p.m.). The rest of the decorations will be left up until the New Year.
Shadow is now one year old.
The beginning of Kitty Wars.
Bought a pet carrier, a new pet bed, and some other items.
Sunny was admitted to Animal Hospital Pet Clinic for surgery, to be neutered and have his front claws removed. The next day they did Feline Leukemia/FIV testing on both cats, and planted a microchip in each of them for identification, should either of them ever escape and get lost. On February 18, we registered both cats for 2004 with the City of Janesville. This was Sunny’s first year to be registered.
Read more about our cats: