Putting Together the Peices

Current Mood: Relaxed but sleepy
Current Music: I have Neverwinter Music stuck in my head. 🙂

Those of you who’ve read my diary for awhile will know we adopted the little Tabby cat pictured above back in July I think it was. A co-worker of mine needed help finding a home for a stray cat that had shown up in her friends back yard. We made arrangements to pick her up that day. She was a tiny little thing, scared, she seemed sweet, and she was quite beautiful. We crated her and drove home. When we arrived home we let her out into a private room away from our other cats until after we could have her vet checked. I removed her from her crate, I picked her and immediately knew she was pregnant. I could tell before the vet even knew for sure, she had little hard bulges and her nipples were large. This is how we ended up with kittens.

Sophie hasn’t been the easiest cat to add to our family. She’s very aggressive towards our dog and sometimes towards us. So far she’s already sent me to the emergency room once and I still have a lovely scar on my right arm from it. Sophie has been a pain in the butt from day one.

I think though, that I’m starting to figure out what may have happened to her. Judging by her reactions to things and her general overall disposition. I think she’s been abused. She perceives every move we make towards her as a threat. She’s always on guard. She has one little silver and purple ball that she loves and tonight I offered it to her and she took it in her teeth like a dog would. I then quickly moved my hand towards her head and she pulled away and cringed, like she thought I was going to hit her. We would NEVER hit our cats. This idea of her having been abused started dawning on me recently, then this evening her reaction to me moving my hand really sealed the deal. I petted Sophie gently on the head to show her that’s all I was going to do then I moved away and walked off. I think Sophie’s aggressive behavior is just her way of trying to survive, she’s probably never known a house full of nothing but kindness. I feel very much like this very well might be what’s up with her. Knowing this the last thing I would do is give her up to someone else. Sophie needs a lot of love, she needs stability, she needs patience. She needs someone that understands her. I know now why she fell into our lives. I don’t necessarily believe in fate but sometimes I think things happen for a reason. Sophie happened for a reason and if it takes 10 years to get her comfortable, to get her to trust people and dogs, I will invest the 10 years it takes to do that. Sophie will not be going to a new home, ever.

She has gotten a little better lately too, she’s always waiting for us when we get home. She usually hops up and stands on hubbys shoulder as he reads the mail. She loves being on hubbys shoulder. I can only hope this is the beginning of actual improvement and she won’t regress like she has in the past. We’ll see, like I said, I have all the time in the world. Especially now that I realize it’s not just her being wild and stray for a long time, there’s more to it than that. She needs lots of positive interraction with people and lots of love. 🙂