Kind of heartbroken

We got a call at 11pm Sunday night. A sweet vet tech from around the corner found Quint in the middle of the street on her way in to work at the 24 hour clinic.

He probably never knew what hit him – it was immediate and catastrophic. The nice vet tech gave him to me in a box, wrapped in a pad, because I wanted to bring him home

I had just been sitting with him on the couch around 10, then he slipped out for a moment. I was about to go call him in when she called.

The cats never even go over to Dwight Way, what was he doing there?. And where did his reflective collar go? She found our information from his chip, the collar was gone. (Would the asshat charging up Dwight who hit him have slowed even if he’d seen him?)

There’s his shiny useless collar, and his shining beautiful tooth.

Here he is when we first got him. Frankly he didn’t think much of us. But he’d used up all his time at the shelter, and had an appointment with a needle the next day. He’d have lived his whole life in a kennel.

So he and his brother came home with Doc.

Once he was out of the box, it was weeks before I could pat him. The Shelter ladies said just to grab him, but I thought he’d had enough of that. The first step was sitting in Sair’s room and letting him come to me, and he did.

I waited him out, and he became My Guy. We ended up like this:

He became the original scarfkitty, burrowing under my hair, squirming and climbing to get as close as he could to Glorious Me! He was convinced there was a way to make my lap happen just under my chin, because anything else was just too far away. He was the happiest cat ever. There was more to being a cat than sitting in a kennel. There was a whole world full of things and people and it was all just grand. And if he wasn’t sitting on me, he was sitting in a great four-headed black cat pile with his brother, hanging out with Doc, who had  became another sibling.

He was an intense, very loving guy. Faster, smarter, shinier than anyone else ever. As if he knew he’d have to pack everything into a short time. I’m missing him.

The Freak Brothers

The Freak Brothers, Sextus and Quint, now have the run of the house. Sarah’s room will eventually recover, I hope. They had been pulling things off the way, tossing push pins around the floor, emptying boxes (!) and drawers…. busy boys.

Sextus is difficult to photograph. He’s less shy than he originally was – sometimes I can even pat him now, and he even comes up to me on his own.

There is Sextus with his crossed eyes, and here are his whiskers.

And Quint. Quint is My Guy.

And these are his claws.

The claws are important, because he spent his kittenhood being socialized by the nice ladies at the animal shelter, who would sit on a chair with him, and he would climb up and play scarf. So that’s what he does. He climbs up on my lap and wants to sleep right up under my chin. Except that he gets all excited and turns around, and slips… So I have a constant trail of tiny, tiny scratches. But he LUBS me.

These, however, are enough.

I don’t care how cute it is, it’s not coming home with us.

And the Breakthrough Kitty!

Quintus (Quintilian? we’re calling him both) is a happy boy. He has sun.

The animal shelter did not have sunlight for kitties. Quint likes the sun.

The new quarters appear to be highly satisfactory. I had tried to resist getting two extra kittens (why?), and the rather desperate volunteer lady said they’d even be okay in a closet for a long time, since they’d spent most of their short lives in a kennel (together, the brothers). Probably she was right, and certainly it would have been better that than being killed. (They made it out by a whisker, with a day to spare). But they really, really like the space and variety of Sair’s room. And probably eventually the whole house, and the world.

She was a little worried, since they had been confined since they were tiny, that they might have a hard time learning to negotiate in a big space. Or even not really know how to play. Not to worry.

Time to play pounce and chase. First pounce.

I can’t get a good photo of chase, because it is just blurs.

If they aren’t asleep, they are playing, and they really don’t seem to be at all lacking in determination or invention. Or fluency of being in the world. They are incredibly athletic and graceful. It’s rather like watching otters: a stream of movement, supple and unceasing. And their minds are on all the time.

They have a pattern. Quint is the leader and pioneer. He’s into everything first. (And into everything.) Then comes Sextus, first watching his brother, then checking things out for himself. Then, usually, a second pass by Quint, in case Sextus found anything new. I think they have hit, pulled, shoved, sat on, or bitten, everything they can reach in the room. And they can reach pretty far. They also try to climb the wall.

It’s all his.

My suspicion is that they were kept together for Sextus’ sake. Sextus is much the more feral of the two, but prettier. Having his brother with him probably made him seem more potentially tame, and having his cuter brother probably was thought to improve Quint’s chances. Black cats can have a hard time of it. For whatever reason, I’m glad they did it, because the boys are very loving to each other. (And they also tolerate, and even play with, Doc!)

Apparently their story is that they were trapped as ferals at an Alley Cats Allies colony, kept at their trailer (?) for a while, and then moved to the Animal Shelter back in May. And all that time in a kennel together, with brief bouts in the exercise room – where apparently they just tried to hide. They had lots of handling, but not much of it voluntary.

The shelter volunteers were telling me to just grab them and pat them. My take on it, though, is that I can’t have cats I need to grab, they have to be willing to come to me. So I’ve been being non-threatening, and talking to them all the time, and just waiting for them to figure things out. Which hadn’t been happening yet.

So here is the Big News:

That is Quint. On my lap. And here too:

My person is mine.

He did tell Doc to back off when he turned up wanting to share the lap. Doc, luckily, is utterly unflappable, and just settled in on the other side.

This morning Quint suddenly decided that I was mom, and all the volunteers at the shelter, and maybe even myself too, and I belong to him. He climbed into my lap, crawled into my hair, found my shoulder and armpit, and generally has tamed me for good. He likes being patted and chomping on ears and fingers. All the hours of work by all those volunteers has paid off. The connections clicked in his little head.

Actually, he both licks and chomps. He’s still a baby.

I think probably Sextus will come around soon. He was watching all this very closely. And walked around me carefully, checking things out. Maybe not today, but soon.