Cats are weird. Yes, shocking news there. Why do I bring this up?
From what Malaya tells me when I pick up the cats after a vacation, Jinx is pretty much inconsolable and skittish the entire time she's at Malaya's condo, while Kyo is immediately at home and romping and playful. This despite the fact that Jinx lived there for the first 3 years of her life, and despite the fact that she knows (yet doesn't quite trust) Malaya. The last two times I've been over to pick up Jinx; in October before I got Kyo, and last week after my New Years vacation, I had to crawl under Malaya's bed to drag Jinx out. This despite the fact that Malaya knew I was coming over and was waiting to close the bedroom door behind Jinx when/if she next emerged to eat or drink. Basically Jinx spends her entire "vacation" hiding under the bed. Initially from Malaya's new husband, and now from Kyo too.
When they were here for the first 3 weeks of Kyo's introduction, in December, they were fairly even. Neither was very happy to see the other cat, and they would growl and stare, or hiss when they were in closer proximity, but there wasn't any combat or interaction at all. Just lots of mutual antipathy. Kyo started to get a little bolder the last few days before my post-Xmas trip, and she'd creep close to Jinx, or follow her from room to room, staring as Jinx ignored her and went into the bedroom to eat.
That dynamic continued, and accelerated, while they were at Malaya's for a week and a half. With Jinx so cowed by the environment and strange tall man, Kyo had a huge advantage and she pressed it; darting after and slapping at Jinx whenever she had the chance. Behavior that clearly contributed to Jinx's hiding under the bed for a week.
That continued, to a lesser extent, for the first few days they were back here this week. Mom was visiting and sleeping on the futon at night, and while Jinx had semi-accepted my mom when she visited here in spring 2008, semi-acceptance means avoidance and flattened ears, but not actively hiding. Jinx grew accustomed to Mom's presence here Wednesday and Thursday, and by Friday morning she was letting Mom pet her, though that was less about kitty happily accepting the caresses and more about Jinx not wanting to avoid it enough to get up and run.
With the familiar location grating Jinx some more confidence, she became less susceptible to Kyo's darting swipe attacks. They continued sporadically, but with decreasing frequency. I drove Mom to the airport for her flight home Friday afternoon, and that night, and then all day Saturday, the cat dynamic shifted noticeably. Kyo hasn't made a darting swipe attack since, which is lucky for her, since as Mom suggested, I've had a water squirt bottle handy since Friday. I was going to pair liquid ejaculations with harsh verbal scoldings when/if Kyo next launched one of her sneak attacks. Jinx is calm and confident now that it's just me and she in familiar surroundings, and her body language projects in some way that Kyo respects.
Kyo is behaving differently too. I hadn't heard her purr at all, and she wasn't looking for attention while Mom was here. Mom wasn't actually playing with or petting her that often, but somehow Kyo was satiated by two people in the environment. That and her Jinx stalking. Now that it's just me and the two cats, Kyo has been doing her "pay attention to me" thing regularly. She hops up onto my lap and purrs and rubs me every few hours. She won't settle down; she's only done the lapcat thing once and that was with me sitting on the bed during her first week here (while the new-cat-traumatized Jinx was hiding under the bed); but Kyo likes the attention and sounds like a little motorboat while she's getting it. She's been following me into the kitchen and rubbing my legs, and she likes to leap up onto the bathroom sink when I'm shaving or brushing my teeth, to purr and rub and be closer to the action.
Kyo wants to be a bed sleeping cat too, but she's still scared of Jinx at close range. Jinx isn't real pleased with her either. And since Jinx is always on my right hip as soon as I'm in bed, sitting or lying, lights on or off, Kyo can't get in there. Last night I was sitting in bed working on my laptop for a couple of hours after a good first date that led to nothing, and Jinx spent the whole time curled against my right hip, grooming herself (all the better to load up on a big hairball for nocturnal emission). Three times Kyo came into the bedroom, paced around the bed, walked over to the left side, and hopped up onto the foot. There she'd crouch and watch, but when Jinx turned to look at her Kyo wouldn't advance any further or settle down. She'd just crouch for a while, then drop down and wander back into the living room.
I need the two of them to be in their normal location and relationship for a while to judge how best to treat them. I don't know if I should be scolding Kyo for attacking, or trying to get them closer together with treats, or tossing them at each other to overload their avoidance circuitry and prompt interaction. And I can't figure it out, since Kyo is still quite new, and I had a house guest for 3 days, and I've been out of town.
Unfortunately (on many levels) the venue and cat psychology is going to continue to be unsettled, since my condo complex is getting sprayed for termites this week, and as a result everyone has to evacuate for 3 days. Pets included, of course. So Kyo and Jinx are going back to Malaya's for another few days, which will return Jinx to her frightened, easily-victimized state, and then necessitate a few more days of settling in time once I bring them back home next weekend. (I'm much less than pleased that I must be out of my apt for 3 days and 2 nights as well, and the fact that I have to remove all food and houseplants is the real pain in the ass, but that's a story for another blog entry.)
Amazing how getting such stupid animals to coexist can be such a challenge. I didn't necessarily expect/want the primary cat and the auxiliary cat to be snuggling besties right from the start, but I did hope they would at least have a relationship with the level of tolerance Jinx and Dusty had. They never exactly snuggled, and Dusty was prone to biting and growling at Jinx, but they could sleep on the same bed and would play by chasing around the condo every now and then, exercising each other. These two are nowhere near that level yet. Well, they do chase occasionally, but it's always with much screaming and hissing and unhappiness. At least they're not fighting in the bedroom at night anymore; being awakened by sudden cat yowling and hissing and maybe thrashing at 5am wasn't really my favorite part of Kyo's first couple of weeks here.
And yes, at some point I'll do a proper introduction to the new kitty post, with photos and original tales and such. I'm sure you can't wait, after the way new-Jinx stories
utterly consumed the blog back in Fall 2003.
Labels: cats, jinx, kyo
