The kitties had a stressful week. We had a new heat pump installed upstairs to replace two aged (one failed) heating and air conditioning systems. For the inside cats, that meant “strangers” invaded the house for three days. For the outside cats, that meant strangers invaded their under house spaces for three days.

To make matters worse for the outside cats, I trapped the dark gray kitten on Monday night and stuffed Walter into a carrier on Tuesday morning. Walter came back on Tuesday afternoon to discover his home had been invaded. We didn’t see him in person again until yesterday morning.

The dark gray kitten was not FIV-infected, but she was sick, so Dr. Valeri kept her to give her medicine. She’s expected to be a good candidate for adoption, so she’ll get that opportunity after she’s feeling better.

Junior has been thoroughly spooked with out attempts to stuff him into a carrier last week, the activity at the trap, and Walter’s carrier stuffing, so he’s been tough to interact with. We hope he’ll calm down in a week or two and present a new opportunity to get him into a carrier and get medical care. I think he’s having trouble with fleas, because he spends a lot of time grooming and chewing. I’d like to get that checked out, too.

The inside cats are unwinding from their stressful week. The HVAC guys have a couple of clean up tasks to finish to have everything right for the new system, and I hope they’ll get to that before the end of next week. Until then, we have cool, so we can’t complain too much.

Rossie continues to improve. She’s clearly decompressing from her stressed life over the last couple of years. She looks at Lady and walks away. Because Rossie walks away, Lady isn’t interested in chasing.

Rossie has figured out that when I close both parlor doors, that means I’m going to let her out of the cage, and she comes parading out of the carrier in anticipation. This is a wonderful sign. I’ve started insisting on petting her before she leaves the cage, and she’s adapted to that as well.  Rossie still prefers to lounge behind the cage (it’s a protected location), but she’s more relaxed when she’s there, and she’ll allow us to approach her there most of the time. She’s beginning to spend more time out in the room, too. She scratches on the scratching post, she grooms, she’ll go into the cage to eat and come back out again. She’s attempting to interact with Ajax and Tarzan, but, sadly, they aren’t as interesting in interacting with her. Mostly, she approaches them, and they ignore her. As a cat mommy, it’s heartbreaking to see, but at least they aren’t chasing her and beating her up. Daphne still needs a little work on her manners with Rossie, but I think they will work it out. Rossie is standing up for herself now instead of just running and fighting out of desperation.

I believe our girl has a long way to go before she’ll be living in the general population of the house again, but she’s making steady progress toward being able to do so. It makes caging her a little less painful. She really is comfortable in there and in this room. The larger house is still too scary for her. At least we’re seeing signs it may not always be that way. I wish we’d have done this two years ago. We learn as we go, and each cat is a little different.