I had a thought about what I wanted to say about the cats earlier today.  Darned if I can remember what it is now.  While I was trying to think of it, I managed to catch Ruby to administer her monthly dose of Revolution.  She’s been evading me for two days.  Honestly, Rossie was easier to convince to let me apply the medication, and that’s saying something.  I think the cats are conspiring to find ways to make me get up and down from the floor multiple times.  That kills my knees, but maybe it’s good for me to do it, so they’re making sure it happens.

Lady is still taking her anxiety medication.  We have a morning routine.  She fights me.  I pop it down her throat.  I pet her and let her go.  She mostly minds her own business until eight or nine in the evening when I tuck her into the cage for the night.  If she has an altercation with Rossie, she goes back in the cage earlier, and we start over again in the morning.  When she can make it two weeks without an altercation, we’ll try leaving her out overnight.  So far, we haven’t made it past five days.  But she’s generally getting along better with the other cats.  That’s a relative term, of course.

Thursday evening, Lady’s cage was full of cats.  Someone was inside the carrier (I think it was Floyd), someone was on top of the carrier (I think it was Delta), and Ajax was stepping into the cage to see what was so exciting.  By the time I was ready to tuck Lady in for the night (she’d been sleeping on a kitchen chair), Delta was inside the carrier and wasn’t in a hurry to come out, so I tucked Lady in.  Before I went to bed, I offered Delta the opportunity to come out of the cage, but she declined.  Everyone seemed happy the next morning.

The cage is not a punishment for them, so most of the cats don’t mind spending time in there.  Lady and Tarzan were born in that cage, and the ferals spent several months in there while they were being socialized.  Natasha goes in to scratch on the scratch box, and Daphne spent her first couple of weeks with us quarantined there until her ringworm cleared up. To this day, when I let Lady out in the morning, Daphne goes in and waits until I put some food in the bowl for her.  She eats, then she comes back out.

I’m slowly trying to gain Mooch’s trust.  After only three attempts, when I walk outside and approach where he’s curled up, he’ll notice me, start to walk away, I pop the top of a Fancy Feast can, he stops, looks at me, doesn’t walk quite so far, I put a serving down for him, he waits for me to step away, he creeps back, eats, walks away.  I put down another serving, and he waits for Sneaky to eat it.  I put down another serving, he steps forward after I’ve stepped away to eat that serving.  He and Sneaky seem to have an agreement that she gets half.  What Sneaky doesn’t tell him (apparently) is that she gets some from me while we’re waiting for him to eat his.  I’m gradually moving the dish closer to me.  We’re at about six – eight feet  of separation now.  We’ll keep working.  Sneaky, on the other hand, is allowing us to pet her in more places further from the side porch steps.