To Go Boldy Where No Feline Has Gone Before

Oscar's quarantine is lifted, having been replaced by supervised releases.

That is, as much as humans can supervise a tiny cat (hey, we trained on Catzillas). Basically, the kid has the stealthy size and Brownian motion of a large kitten but the coordination and energy of an adult cat. He also has also a mini-turbo mode he saves for escaping grasping hands. Since we're not sure how much he can aggravate the Catzillas if truly left alone, this means we spend a lot of time and energy trailing him from floor to floor.

The kid is also quite fearless. If the Grey Mouser with his love of human affection and disdain for the Catzilla brothers seemed Emily reincarnated, Oscar is Emily's revenge for being stalked. Whitey still occasionally hangs out in front of Oscar's door, but he is shocked when Oscar actually comes prancing out and walks right up to Whitey, making Whitey deeply nervous and defensive. Billy is less perturbed, and is willing to sniff nose-to-nose with the new kid, but would prefer to be left to go about his business.

The new kid, meanwhile, isn't real good at boundaries.

Overall, Oscar spends a lot of time out of his suite acting like an mildly annoying groupie, trailing his uncles around the house and occasionally cornering them in a way that can cause a raised paw (which Oscar answers) or even a low hiss. Fortunately, there has been no contact -- the boys prefer to break off the engagement rather than give their nephew a somewhat deserved clocking. This morning, he came prancing up to Billy and basically pounced on him. (Keep in mind that Billy is twice his size.) A brief bout of shadow cat fu ensued. Billy wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or confused, and vacated the area with Oscar in hot pursuit.

As for catching Oscar to put him away, we may have a solution. Like the Catzillas as kittens, he's a sucker for a laser dot, including chasing it all the way from the living room to his suite.