I am by no means, a cat psychologist, but the strangest thing happened this past week. Spooky is a part Siamese cat Bill found hiding in a wood pile when she was a wee kitten nearly twelve years ago. She is a devoted pet to me, but when others are around, she is scarce. She hides under a chair or sofa when family members come to call and only dashes out and streaks for the bedroom if somebody frightens her out. She's been this way since birth. Willy jokes that I don't really have a second cat, since he's only seen the back end of her running down the hallway. Very occasionally, she will allow Charlie or Sage to pet her, but it is usually only when she is half awake from a nap and they have moved very slowly.
When we first moved here to Arizona, she spent the best part of the first month living in the guest bedroom. Indeed, the first week we were here, she spent it wedged up inside a small cupboard with a false bottom. The Hidier the Better in Spooky's world. Since DeLores was arriving for a week's visit, I wanted to vacate the bedroom of the cats for her. So two weeks ago, I 'evicted' the cats from the guest room and tried to make the sun room more welcoming. It worked pretty well. Spook settled in to a small red velour cat house on the floor, with an opening small enough that Chuy doesn't stick his nose into. The rest of the time she spends sleeping under the recliner loveseat in the front room. So... I thought... I hoped things would be 'okay' when DeLores arrived.
I wasn't convinced that it would be so. I half worried that just having somebody else in the house would destroy any of the peace Spooky was showing lately. A few days before she arrived, I even got Spook to join Kickers in a Deck Outing. On the deck, we've got two big wire dog carriers we've rigged up with perches so we can take the parrots out for sunning. One of the carriers is so large, we've even got a separator in them. The birds are having a good time communing with the wild birds and Bill has set it up with a fan that blows a cool mist on them when it gets too hot. (Wind and fog are something we were never at a lack for in Dillon Beach, but hmmmm... in Arizona, it's rather nice to be cooled with a misty fog.) But Kickers decided several weeks ago that one of the parrot's cages on the deck was a dandy place to view the wild birds that flocked nearby and she goes out for hours at a time, perfectly happy. So last week, I got Spook to join her. At first, she was definitely apprehensive, but by the second time, she seemed to settle down and like it.
Maybe it was the open wire carrier on the deck that 'opened' Spook up to new conditions that did it. Maybe it was just that since she's going to be twelve years old this summer, she's decided that she can change. Whatever... she did it. By the end of the second day, she was letting DeLores lure her and allowed DeLores to stroke her. She wouldn't flee the room when DeLores entered it. She even rolled in the sunshine and regarded DeLores as another 'Mama'. She has let my friend Pam stroke her, but this was when we'd been gone for vacation for several weeks and Pam had to spend a lot of time getting the cat to let her get near her. Spooky seemed to be all in favor of having DeLores as our guest and while she didn't gush over her as Kickers did, she kept coming out and letting DeLores pet her each day. We were plain amazed!
One of the aspects DeLores and I have in common are that DeLores has two partial Siamese cats too that I have yet to see! They do not like company or anybody strange in their home and though she tells me she has those two, I've never seen them! So maybe there is a special Siamese mysterious about DeLores and I that these sorts of cats like. DeLores' cats are only four years old, so I told her she might have to wait eight more years before her cats come out for company. And maybe, Spooky won't do this again for the next person who visits. But personally, I think the move to Arizona has 'loosened' her up and by the time I get her back to Dillon Beach this summer, she'll be such a well traveled cat, she'll welcome anything that comes her way.
Well.... I can hope so, can't I?
