We have to go to San Antonio next week, so I moved Sapphire’s spay appointment to last Wednesday. Our girl is doing well after surgery. The other thing we did every day last week was spend some time snuggled. After the initial approach where gloves were necessary, I only used them as a precaution. I was even able to catch her twice one day without extensive effort, but so far, that’s the exception rather than the rule.

I know she wants to be out of the cage — she spends a lot of time sitting by the door. But if I go to talk to her, she moves to the back, and I still have to pull her off the sides or the top to bring her out. She’s only hissing sometimes and clings less fervently, so I believe we are making some progress. Interestingly, since we’ve started doing this, she’s not trashing the cage as much.

I joke Sapphire was raised by raccoons. She plays in her water and seems to wash her food before she eats it. I checked with Dr. Val to make sure that’s not a sign of some other problem. Since I’ve been pulling her out for snuggles each day, the cage has been a lot cleaner and dryer. I hope we’ll be making fewer trips to San Antonio after this week. We’ll see. If that’s the case, I’m ready to begin experimenting with allowing Sapphire to spend her days out of the cage like Rossie does. She needs time to interact with the other cats, and I want to give her a chance to interact with us.