Entry tags:
Kitty acquaintanceship progress
As long-time readers are aware, Wax and I have been cat divorced for what feels like forever* (in this case, since we brought Sipuli home last September), in a house Sipuli lives in the kitchen and diningroom, and the door between the diningroom and the livingroom is covered with a baby gate, and the idea is that the cats are supposed to get used to each other gradually through this gate material and then introduce themselves to each other, cat style, through the gate, by sniffing each other. That's what normal cats would do.
But Tristana is weird (possibly she's an autistic cat and that would make her the second one of those we've had), and she was extremely traumatized by the times Anubis escaped his containment and chased and attacked her, and so she has been as jumpy as popcorn kernels in a saucepan on the stove and just basically... not acting in a way that Sipuli can recognize as cat-like. So Sipuli has no idea how to interpret her.
Tristana's journey: Tristana would initially not come near the gate at all; then she would gradually creep closer but run away and hide at any sign of movement. Over weeks and months she gradually got more comfortable relaxing and playing closer and closer to the gate, occasionally coming up and sniffing it; and basically whenever Sipuli caught sight of her approaching it was The Most Exciting Thing That Ever Happened, and Sipuli would get incredibly heightened and RUN to the gate and plaster herself to it like, TRISTANA PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!! LET'S BE FRIENDDDSSSS! Tristana was afraid of these explosions of violent excitement at first, but she has gradually stopped finding them scary at all. For some time now she has just watched them with her head cocked like she was Spock about to say "Fascinating". She would come sit near the gate, looking for Sipuli, not afraid at all, but also not willing to be grabbed (Sipuli tends to jump on the gate, or climb up the gate like a spidercat, or stick her feet through the bars and wave them around). In the last few weeks, her response to Sipuli jumping is mostly just to retreat like... two inches, or four inches, or however much the exact minimum required is to make it so Sipuli can't touch her. Except a few times when she felt like playing and she reached right back and tried to grab Sipuli's hands as well.
Sipuli's journey: So Tristana has made a lot of progress, and will stay sitting right next to the gate now even when Sipuli gets excited and rattles it or bounces off it a bit. But now the problem is Sipuli. After her first reaction of getting over-excited - usually like, one bounce - she typically has a quick spurt of intense regret and self-doubt, and frequently retreats, sometimes all the way into the other room. It seems that she has learned that her over-excitedness has something bad associated with it, but she doesn't understand what about it is wrong, so she will leave the gate while Tristana is still sitting right there peering through at her like "Where are you going?"
They have sat quite close on opposite sides of the gate looking at each other, neither one freaking out, I'd say about three times in the last week and a half, though. They still haven't sniffed and greeted each other, but I think it is probably not far away now. And then when they do they can be introduced on leashes in the same space!!!!!!!
This was last weekend, the second time they did it. And these are sketches I did after![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waxjism said "They're so Kiki and Boba!"
* But before that since I think 2022 because of Anubis, with a couple of weeks of breaks here and there.
But Tristana is weird (possibly she's an autistic cat and that would make her the second one of those we've had), and she was extremely traumatized by the times Anubis escaped his containment and chased and attacked her, and so she has been as jumpy as popcorn kernels in a saucepan on the stove and just basically... not acting in a way that Sipuli can recognize as cat-like. So Sipuli has no idea how to interpret her.
Tristana's journey: Tristana would initially not come near the gate at all; then she would gradually creep closer but run away and hide at any sign of movement. Over weeks and months she gradually got more comfortable relaxing and playing closer and closer to the gate, occasionally coming up and sniffing it; and basically whenever Sipuli caught sight of her approaching it was The Most Exciting Thing That Ever Happened, and Sipuli would get incredibly heightened and RUN to the gate and plaster herself to it like, TRISTANA PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!! LET'S BE FRIENDDDSSSS! Tristana was afraid of these explosions of violent excitement at first, but she has gradually stopped finding them scary at all. For some time now she has just watched them with her head cocked like she was Spock about to say "Fascinating". She would come sit near the gate, looking for Sipuli, not afraid at all, but also not willing to be grabbed (Sipuli tends to jump on the gate, or climb up the gate like a spidercat, or stick her feet through the bars and wave them around). In the last few weeks, her response to Sipuli jumping is mostly just to retreat like... two inches, or four inches, or however much the exact minimum required is to make it so Sipuli can't touch her. Except a few times when she felt like playing and she reached right back and tried to grab Sipuli's hands as well.
Sipuli's journey: So Tristana has made a lot of progress, and will stay sitting right next to the gate now even when Sipuli gets excited and rattles it or bounces off it a bit. But now the problem is Sipuli. After her first reaction of getting over-excited - usually like, one bounce - she typically has a quick spurt of intense regret and self-doubt, and frequently retreats, sometimes all the way into the other room. It seems that she has learned that her over-excitedness has something bad associated with it, but she doesn't understand what about it is wrong, so she will leave the gate while Tristana is still sitting right there peering through at her like "Where are you going?"
They have sat quite close on opposite sides of the gate looking at each other, neither one freaking out, I'd say about three times in the last week and a half, though. They still haven't sniffed and greeted each other, but I think it is probably not far away now. And then when they do they can be introduced on leashes in the same space!!!!!!!
This was last weekend, the second time they did it. And these are sketches I did after
waxjism said "They're so Kiki and Boba!"* But before that since I think 2022 because of Anubis, with a couple of weeks of breaks here and there.