Having a blog is a funny thing—you don’t always want to go into a lot of things in your life. It’s like, you want your readers to know a lot about you, but not everything. Or you want to share, but you don’t want to overshare, or share too much about other people in your life.
That’s probably the main thing. The other people. My big other person is my boyfriend Louie, who I was fortunate to meet, and who I met not terribly long after my separation from my now ex-husband. I was lucky to meet Louie then, but I would have been lucky to meet him anytime. Arguably, meeting him a little later might have been luckier still as we both had a lot of baggage to work through, but we felt that we were the right people for each other, and that made it the right time. I wake up nearly every day feeling special.
But I digress. I really want this blog post to be about pets. I was renting, Louie is a homeowner, so when my lease was nearing its end we decided the practical thing would be to merge our households. We knew it might be a little soon for both of us, but financially it made sense, and it made sense personally as well—we knew we were in a serious relationship, and figured moving in together was the logical next step, and who was to say what “too soon” was.
So the biggest worry for me was how my cat would adjust to living with his cat and dog. I thought she was a fat, lovable, cuddly, sweetheart of a cat who might be terrified to move in with a giant black dog and a white cat who likes to cuddle with her claws extended on your neck. I did some reading and talked with my vet and came up with a gameplan. The first step was to move the fatness over and give her her own room of the house. For a week or so she lived in the bedroom by herself. After a few days we put up a babygate so the pets could see each other too but not touch. And, little did I realize that my sweet little cat was ACTUALLY kind of the meanest cat ever. She would growl and hiss at the other animals. She hated Chloe (the white cat) from the bottom of her heart. Once we started opening up the house further she would let out the scariest growls from under the bed, terrifying us all! She left scratches on Mackenzie and Chloe, and basically told them that she wasn’t to be messed with! Every doorway was a small battlefield, and around ever corner lay a potential fight. My sweet little cat was still the sweetest cat to me and Louie and other people, but I learned quickly that she was not to be messed with.
But time heals most wounds. Over time, she grew used to the other pets, and they grew used to her. They still hiss and fight, especially the two cats, especially when they are hungry and it’s feeding time, but the urgency and seriousness isn’t there anymore. Mackenzie still backs up when she sees the Dr. coming (we have taken to calling her Dr Oysterman—long story) but just this morning they had a moment of sniffing each other’s mouths before retreating to their separate areas. Chloe and the Dr. definitely fight over food (and that’s been made more difficult with Chloe having special diabetic food, sigh…) but otherwise they basically co-exist and have their own areas of the house that they hang out in, and occasionally they even relax near one another!
And as far as Louie and I, living together in an old house definitely has its challenges..dog fur EVERYWHERE, and moisture, and spiders, and clutter, but we are making relentless forward progress, and he is one of the most kind and generous people I know. Plus, I love living in a house that I “own”…technically I don’t, but I’m not really a tenant either…it’s nice having a sense of permanence about one’s living situation. I haven’t had that in my adult life, and didn’t know I missed it until I moved here! But that’s a post for another time.
(So, while the animals are generally getting along better, we are having some issues. Chloe is diabetic, and has been peeing where she shouldn’t. The advice we got from the vet was to keep the litter boxes super clean. We do have 3 boxes for the two cats, in various places…but she still pees on stuff rather than in them. It’s frustrating to say the least. Any advice, readers? She did have a urinary tract infection when she first got diagnosed with diabetes, but doesn’t have one now. )
We just added a dog to our formerly cat-only house and it has been a challenge! The dog wants to play, the cat runs away, the dog thinks it’s a game… we have a baby gate (with a cat door) separating off the upstairs so the cat can have his own space during the day, that seems to be helping.
One of our cats had the peeing issue. It was definitely stress-related (this was after we moved into our house). What finally worked for us was giving him his own room with his own litter box, food and water. He lives in the room and the door stays closed. It’s actually where all of my clothes are (our master closet is teeny tiny), so he gets lots of attention while I get ready in the mornings. He’s actually way happier, too, he comes out for pets whereas before he spent most of his time hiding under the couch (and peeing on it).
Also make sure that any urine gets cleaned up with an enzyme cleaner. If they can smell the urine at all, they will keep peeing there. We invested in a steam cleaner and it was well worth it.
Thank you for the timely post. This is how I envision my cat, Haley, and her new hairy roommates…2 cats and a dog. She will be the odd chick out. I expect nothing but bitchiness from her.