A cat update

[bunn]

The cats are still living separate lives. Gothmog, who under the impact of moving house, builders, and I suspect, increased pressure from Nenya after Fankil went missing, had a bit of a breakdown, has gained a bit of confidence, but she's still spending a lot of time just sitting on our bed, like a small worried black hole with eyes. 

 

She does get up and bounce about a bit at night, and sunbathes by the window. 

Sadly, Fankil, Gothmog's best friends before he vanished, has come back a bit... odd.  At first he was fearful but he's got over that now, and seems increasingly confident.  When he isn't confident, he's more likely to be psychopathically violent than retreat, which is NOT what you want when you are trying to get three cats to live together. He grabbed poor Gothmog and kicked her while wowling angrily, and I had to tear them apart. I think he just completely overloaded his little brain. 

Anyway, we gave them a good couple of weeks living entirely separate after the wowling mugging incident. Well, Fankil was separate from the cats, anyway.  He is very chill with the dogs: that's him in the middle dog bed. 

Then we considered how to work on a gradual reintroduction.  Screen doors aren't really a thing here, or at least, I couldn't find one that seemed robust enough to take the impact of a wowling overloaded Fankil. So we bought a sort of recycled plastic trellis thing, some hinges and some wood. 

I'm hoping that with time, Gothmog will gain confidence and can hang out with Fankil without fangs being involved.  At the moment, she has yet to approach the screen, but we live in hope. 

I am quite pleased with the screen, which I have set up with rather nifty autoclosing hinges (thanks to Pp working his way through the instructions on how to make the springs work) and a magnet to clip it shut.  It also has a hook and eye because I trust Fankil considerably less far than I could (theoretically) throw him and I'm pretty sure at some point he's going to try to open it with his cunning paws. 

 

Comments

[lferion]

What a lovely screen solution!

I do hope the cattens settle.

[bunn]

Thanks, so do I!

[mecurtin]

What a cunning screen solution! I hope it works.

[bunn]

Well, so far so good, though whether the cats will react as intended is another matter.

[hhimring]

Poor Gothmog!
(Not something I had expected myself to be saying, but then I wasn't thinking of a small worried black hole with eyes...)
Do you think Fankil might have had some kind of bad experiences with other cats out there, as well as general brain overload?

That screen has vaguely Alhambra vibes to me. I'm impressed!
I hope your plan works.

[bunn]

She really doesn't live up to her name. Yes, we suspect something bad happened to Fankil. There's no obvious sign of injury, and he's put on weight and is physically healthy, so lots of calm positive experiences and time we hope will help. He was a very fearful cat when we adopted him, so he wasn't entirely un-screwed-up even before he went AWOL. He's not obviously fearful now, but he is... odd. Still, we do odd animals here.

[torkell]

> I'm pretty sure at some point he's going to try to open it with his cunning paws.

My dad used to have a cat that learnt how to open doors. He retaliated by turning the door handles upside-down (so you had to lift them to open)... which was mostly successful, though every so often the cat still managed to open the doors!

[bunn]

They can manipulate things very effectively for animals without thumbs!

[independence1776]

I hope the "screen" door works. Even in the ones here in the States aren't terribly substantial. They're most to keep bugs out.

[bunn]

I googled and did find a few recommendations for ones likely to stand up to cats, but nothing in the UK. But I quite like what we've ended up with, and it's definitely catproof.

[king_pellinor]

The screen door is like something out of an Altair design book.

I'm not sure how to colour it in, though :-)

[anna_wing]

Your screen is very handsome! My window mosquito screens in my house were held on magnetically (to the iron window grilles), and stopped being cat-proof the day they got strong enough to flip up one corner with their paws and slither out.

Gothmog is...really black.