It has been five months since we've adopted Polly and it's been a bit of a rough go. I don't know how much of the struggled has been against tortitude and how much had been against a cat that has been through some things. I've blogged about her before, so some details might be there.
When we adopted Polly I learned that she had been adopted once before, but returned after a month. I might be personifying this, but even factoring that in I doubt that could be easy for a cat. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to return this sweet cat.
Well, my imagination wasn't needed for long.
Polly proved to be quite a handful right off the bat. She liked to wake you up multiple times at night trying to nuzzle your neck and get under the covers with you. You can easily chalk that up to a cat being lonely. Then there was the fun bit where she would throw up every day. Every day, not 3-5 times a week, but at least once a day.
At first we thought that she might simply have a gluten allergy, or not do well with dry food. I bought some insanely expensive dry food and started her on some equally expensive canned food. For a while we kept her just on the canned food. That helped a little bit, but she started stealing some of Crystal's dry food so we started her on the dry food.
She likes jumping up on the kitchen counter when we aren't in there and while she normally just likes to sleep high up on stuff, we think she sometimes licks stuff she shouldn't. She also has a low tolerance for hairballs. Now she gets a small amount of regular canned food (I get the reasonably gluten-free stuff) and eats the same dry food Crystal does. I also give her a weekly dose of hairball remedy medicine. We've gotten her down to about once a week getting sick.
The next fun thing to deal with was Polly using the dog bed as a litter box. Actually I should be more specific....dog's beds. Eventually we had to just get rid of one bed and keep one of the other's stowed away when not in use.
We also got Polly a bit of her own space. Our house is a small three bedroom place where my wife and I each basically have an "office". My office now has a baby gate covering the doorway. Polly is quite the jumper and Crystal hates to jump up on stuff. Now Polly has a private place to go where she has her own bed, food, water, and litterbox. I think this has helped a lot.
It's taken a while, but Polly has been fitting in. She still likes to stalk Crystal in the hallway, but it looks more like play than a prelude to an attack. Light cat-fights are still a daily occurance, but usually because Crystal doesn't feel like playing and isn't willing to slink away. They'll both share the same room and at night can both share space on our bed. Polly is getting along with Tessa a bit more than I would have expected. They can sleep near each other and Polly doesn't cross the room just to take a swipe at her.
We even get some cute and/or funny moments. When we come home from being out Tessa normally comes running down the hall to greet us. Polly will be right on her tail, only she veers off at the last moment to act disinterested. If she hasn't seen you in a while she likes to do a shoulder roll and stretch in a cute fashion in front of you.
Polly has also discovered the joys of sleeping on...and now in, a shopping bag.
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