Thursday, June 5, 2014

Introducing Oliver

As of Tuesday night, I am one step closer to crazy cat lady. We welcomed Oliver Snow Lafferty with open arms (except for Henry--he welcomed him with much hissing, growling, and a few swat attempts). Oliver is the sweetest lil' babe--a total lovebug lap cat. It's so funny to see how different he and Henry are; Henry is hyper, high-strung, and independent (he'll cuddle, but only on HIS terms) and Oliver is calm, relaxed, and mews if you're out of his sight for too long. We're still working on slowly introducing them, so *hopefully* in a week or two they'll be best buds...or at least be tolerant of each other. In the meantime, Oliver has been making himself right at home. I managed to snap a few shots of him after he finished exploring his new residence.

Oliver1

Oliver4

Oliver2

Oliver3


Gah, so cute! I think he's a little happy to be home.

8 comments :

  1. Oh my goodness, he is such a cutie!

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  2. I seriously am in love with both of your babies. That last pic!!!

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    1. I KNOW. He looks so blissed out and it just kills me!

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  3. Aah, he is SO precious! That last one melts my heart.

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    1. Mine too! And he's such a lover! He will literally start purring when I talk to him!

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  4. He is adorable! How are you introducing your cats to each other? I did it totally wrong the first time, and Max and Mitzi hate each other. I really want another cat, and when Rand finally caves, I want to do a better job with introductions.

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    1. It was a HUGE pain in the butt, honestly! Ha. We got Oliver on a Tuesday night, so I took Wednesday and Thursday off from work (I'm already off Fridays), and stayed home for FIVE DAYS. I think I left the apartment for maybe three hours total, and it was torture. The hissing, the growling, the pitiful mews from the one locked in the bathroom.....

      Okay, so basically what I did was this: we brought Oliver home and put him in a carrier in the living room and let Henry investigate (if I ever got another cat, I would skip this step, because it just made Henry super anxious and irritable, and I think it scared Oliver). For the next two days, I kept one in the bathroom and let one out to roam--and I rotated them every.single.hour (so they could investigate each others' scent without being face-to-face). Day two I also cracked the door to let them see each other. Day three I brought them out and played with them in the same room (with different toys); they were super uneasy around each other, and Henry started to try to play with Oliver, but Oliver was scared so it didn't go the best. Day four they started kiiiiiinda playing, but I had to make sure I was right there and had to separate them a lot because Henry was playing rough and Oliver was freaked out and just kept running away (and Henry would chase him, thinking he was playing....). Day five, Oliver started reciprocating, and we were pretty good after that.

      A lot of things we read online said to keep them separate and never let them face-to-face for at least a week! There was no way we could manage that, and it just seemed cruel to have Oliver stuck in our bathroom 24/7. We kinda followed the general steps of introducing cats that you find most everywhere online--we just did sped up the timeline. It probably helped that they were kittens and had been around other cats before.

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