Friday, December 5th, 2008

Little One, a new family member. 家里添了小家伙。

Her name is Little One, that’s the calling she responded to when she first time came into our house sniffing around last weekend. She was our neighbors’ cat and grew up with her sister, both about one year old now. I’ve posted their story before, in Chinese.) They had two litters two weeks apart this May and she was the better mom taking care of all the kittens. However, after our neighbors got her spayed recently, she became standoffish and no longer wants to have anything to do with our neighbors and their other remaining cats including her own sister.  Instead, she started coming to our back door whenever we were home and was not afraid to come in and loved to be petted. After some serious thoughts, my husband and I decided to adopt her and our neighbors were happy to hear about it because they couldn’t even touch her any more.

Our neighbors let their cats run free during the day and let them into the house at night. I think Little One has been sleeping under our shed recently. We decided to turn Little One into an indoor cat.  So, Tuesday night, we left her in the bathroom with her litter box, food, water, toys, and a sleeping cave (with heated Snuggle-Safe pad). At 2:30am, she managed to somehow turn the slippery door knob located 4 feet off the ground and broke loose.  After we turned the lights on, we found her sitting in the rocking chair. Lucky for us, she did not hate us for locking her up because we were able to approach her without any problem, pet her, and send her back to the bathroom.It’s been three days since we had her in the house. I’m getting to know her more. For example, I now know:

  • She meows softly, which makes her sound irresistibly adorable. Sometimes, her meows borderline squeeks that startle Erik and I from time to time.
  • Her front paws get in a kneading motion when she is petted and feeling comfortable, and she does that a lot. She had very sharp nails when we just got her, and it really hurt when she kneaded on our legs. So, I had to clip her nails, about which I was quite nervous. To my surprise and relief, she is not bothered by nail clipping at all. When I clipped her nails the first time, she just lay on my laps peacefully and let me move her paws however I liked. That made the task so much easier. Oh, Little One, I’m so proud of you!
  • She is a lap cat! My dream cat has always been one who can lie in my laps peacefully while I read a book, watch TV, or work on my computer. That’s exactly what she is doing right now.  She needs me, that is a great feeling, for me.
  • She loves to be petted. Anytime, if she sees that you are serious about spending time petting her, she would come out of her bed and walk up to you. She starts purring even before you move your fingers. One morning, when I went to the back deck to dump her trash, she managed to run outside when the sliding door was open. That was after she had been locked up in the bathroom at night and during the day when we were gone. Seeing her running around excitedly sniffing everything, my heart sank thinking I would not be able to get her back to the house easily. However, only after I waited for a couple of minutes, she came back to me and lay down wanting to be petted. I had no trouble picking her up and bringing her back in the house.

我家来了个小家伙。她本来是我们邻居的，现在大概一岁了。本来是和她的姊妹形影不离的，两位今年五月各自生了一窝小猫咪。可是最近听我们邻居讲，这个小家伙突然间不再搭理他们，也不搭理其他的猫了。反而最近我和老公在家，她会跑到我们后门来叫门。门一打开，她就从容地进来左闻闻右闻闻，煞是可爱。我和老公起了领养之心，毕竟是人小猫家自己找上门来的，这是缘分，我们不收留说不过去。和邻居一商量，他们当场拍板同意，毕竟他们的猫已经够多了。

本想等到周末在收她进来，可是天冷了，晚上把她推出门去很让人不忍心，所以第二天，我们跑到店里买了一批必备品：猫砂，沙盆，猫粮，毛刷，小老鼠，等等。用个大盒子，铺上毛巾和软布，中间买上热垫子（微波两分钟，保暖十二个小时），前面挖个圆圆的洞，这就成了她喜爱的睡觉窝。当晚她又进门，好一阵亲热后，我们把她关进了卫生间，关键要在前几天给她把上猫砂盆的好习惯养成，另外也让她明白卫生间就是她的领地，以后有个大惊小怪，她好知道往哪里躲。门关上我们就去睡觉了。半夜两点半，莫名其妙我就醒来，过了一小会，我听到小家伙把卫生间的门打开了。我在被窝里目瞪口呆，要知道那个门是需要拧门闩的，滑滑的，她怎样用两个小爪子握住那个门闩的？我听到她轻轻地喵喵地叫，一会跑到卧室来，然后跑到客厅里。没声了。这下我睡不住了，起身过程中把老公弄醒了，我们就都起来了，着装整齐到客厅里找小家伙。以为这下不好找也不好抓到她了呢，没想到打开灯就看到她在老公的摇摇椅里端坐，见到我们轻轻地喵了两声。我们凑上前，她也不跑，拍拍她揉揉她很享受的样子，我们又把她送回了卫生间。后来两三天我们上班也是把卫生间关上，她好像也不介意。

昨天晚上给她剪指甲，温顺非常，一点反抗都没有，真是让我欣慰呀。

她现在就乖乖地躺在我的腿上打小呼噜。我坐多久，她就能躺多久，有如此一个小生灵依赖着我，我坐得腰酸背痛地都不舍得起身呀。