{"id":15223,"date":"2015-09-05T00:10:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T04:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=15223"},"modified":"2015-09-04T14:58:53","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T18:58:53","slug":"a-most-harrowing-36-hours-in-a-multi-cat-household","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/a-most-harrowing-36-hours-in-a-multi-cat-household\/","title":{"rendered":"A Most Harrowing 36 Hours in a Multi-Cat Household"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rose2\"<\/a>

Sweet Rose enjoying her brief stay at the luxurious Chez Zee & Zoey Resort – aka the guest bedroom…<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s been several weeks since we had our kitty visitor, Miss Rose, a neighborhood cat I found in the middle of the street early one morning who\u00a0had accidentally escaped from her house. She literally stayed with us only 36 hours, but when you consider in cat math, that seven years equals one human year, those 36 hours probably felt like endless months. Well, at the very least, for Jazmine they\u00a0did…<\/p>\n

I had wanted to share this\u00a0observation\u00a0earlier, but due to vacation and some scheduled posts I could not postpone, I couldn\u2019t write about it until now. You see, our darling rescue kitty, Jazmine – a kitty that was welcomed with astonishing good grace and acceptance from her fellow Zee\/Zoey catmates in very quick fashion – was upset to her very core that we had feline company.<\/p>\n

\"Jazminedoesnot-like-Rose\"<\/a>

For pretty much the entire 36 hours Rose was in the house, this was the wild-eyed look on Jazmine’s face. Her pupils were so dark, they were almost fully black.<\/p><\/div>\n

Now mind you, from the moment I brought Rose into the house at approximately 7:00 am to the point she went home the next evening after I discovered though her microchip who her guardian was, never once did Jazmine get introduced to the\u00a0cat. I brought Rose into the house in a cat carrier (that I conveniently had in the back seat of my car) and immediately put her in the\u00a0spare bedroom and shut the door. I didn\u2019t leave the door open for the cats to peek at her and I constantly washed my hands after petting her because I did not know if she had any contagious diseases that could harm my cats.\u00a0I also did this to remove as much of\u00a0her scent as I could off of me to keep my cats from getting overly upset around me.<\/p>\n

Now obviously I know that cats have an extremely keen sense when it comes to smells and new stimuli within the household. Despite Rose not being formally “introduced,” clearly the cats knew they had feline company. One quick whiff at the bedroom door confirmed it for Jazmine and that was all it took – she was literally spooked to the core and could barely function.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_8349\"<\/a>

Jazmine’s no fool – even with the door shut, she knew a four-legged feline foe was lurking behind it.<\/p><\/div>\n

She slid around the house, low to the ground, quickly hiding in any safe spot she could find and didn’t even want to come out for dinner. At one point she was so upset, when I went to open the door leading to the garage to get the mail, she tore past me, something she has never done before, and almost got outside.<\/p>\n

Luckily \u00a0(and thankfully) I was able to grab her before something tragic happened, but her message was relayed loud and clear – she did NOT\u00a0want Rose in the house.<\/p>\n

It was certainly fascinating to witness her behavior. As I said, when she came into our\u00a0house last year (something Dan and I\u00a0did not anticipate – we went to the\u00a0Global Pet Expo in Orlando to learn about new cat products on the market, and instead came home with her), her reception from the others was one of minimal stress and she was successfully acclimated within a couple of weeks, almost like she had been living with us her whole life.<\/p>\n

Kizmet and Rolz took to her so quickly that they would visit with her in the bedroom we were keeping her in, and even the girls – Zoey, Mia, and Peanut – while they weren’t necessary thrilled to have Jazmine on board, they didn’t put up much of a fight either.<\/p>\n

\"KizRolzJazmine\"<\/a>

This was Jazmine’s room the first couple of weeks she was with us (and the same room we gave Rose to stay in). Kizmet and Rolz used to come and visit her – it was love at first sight for both of them.<\/p><\/div>\n

With Rose, once again the boys stepped up to the plate, knowing that some sort of delectable femme fatale was behind the door. Kizmet scratched at the door to meet his potential new friend and Rolz was next in line. I don’t think Zee\u00a0was even aware\u00a0Rose was in the house and the girls, well, they couldn’t be bothered to care. So, there you have it. It brings up a very interesting question. If we should decide upon adding another feline to the mix one day, would it work or would Jazmine’s obvious stress be so significant that it would upset the carefully crafted dynamic that successfully works in our current household?<\/p>\n

\"_DSC6859\"<\/a>

Rolz is basically saying, “What? A new female cat in the house! Oh, yes please!”<\/p><\/div>\n

\"DSC_0842\"<\/a>

Kizmet is trying to explain to Zee that there really is a new cat in the house… Zee’s all like, “What? A new hat on a mouse? Doesn’t even make sense.”<\/p><\/div>\n

\"NewPeanutMiaZoey1\"<\/a>

Poor girls – Zoey, Peanut, and Mia – clearly they are extremely stressed out that Rose is in the house!<\/p><\/div>\n

Maybe if it was a kitten it would work. I would guess Rose was about a year old and maybe that is too close to Jazmine’s age for her to feel comfortable. Who knows? I do know at this point, I am just grateful we were able to reunite Rose with her guardian so that our household is back on a relatively peaceful track. I thoroughly disinfected the bedroom and washed the bed linens to remove any traces of her (and to discourage any possibility of territorial peeing) and unless you personally knew the story of Rose, you would never know she was in our house. But had we ended up keeping her, who knows what\u00a0kinds of negative behavioral problems between the gang could have cropped up.<\/p>\n

That’s something I am always conscious of – as you can well imagine, people are asking me all the time to adopt another cat, basically saying, “What’s the big deal, it’s just one more?” Well, the big deal is that I love my cats and much as I would love to have more, my gang\u00a0comes first in my heart and it’s not always in their best interest to adopt another. The decision is not one to be made lightly and one has to really consider all of the circumstances before making a life-changing commitment. Adoption is forever (at least in my world) and I don’t take the responsibility lightly.<\/p>\n

\"8-2-14jazmine1\"<\/a>

This was Jazmine like literally the second Rose left the house… How do they know… how do they know?<\/p><\/div>\n

How about you all? Any of you have a story of a cat that you brought into your already existing cat household that was difficult to acclimate? What did you do to finally have them get along?<\/p>\n

\"hearts\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On another note, if you are able to partake in the 3 day Labor Day Weekend, please be safe and enjoy!<\/p>\n

\"DSC_4968\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been several weeks since we had our kitty visitor, Miss Rose, a neighborhood cat I found in the middle of the street early one morning who\u00a0had accidentally escaped from her house. She literally stayed with us only 36 hours, but when you consider in cat math, that seven years equals one human year, those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1092],"tags":[175,65,489],"class_list":["post-15223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jazmine","tag-cat-behavior","tag-caturday","tag-multi-cats"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Jazminedoesnot-like-Rose.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15223"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15312,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223\/revisions\/15312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}