Photo Extra: Made in the Shade

Oscar in his natural habitat, in the shade under the futon. Mostly, it's cooler there. He's happy to come out to be stroked, or be stroked in place.

Exploring With (and About) Oscar

Update on the new guy ...

Did I mention he purrs to wake the dead?

We did not pick his name. Oscar is the name on his adoption contract, and we don't seem to have a better one. He already has been referred to as Slinky, Grasshopper, Micro-mighty Hunter, Whitey Junior, and a few other sweet nicknames.

At three weeks old, Oscar was found with two siblings under a garbage can. His rescuer bottle fed them, and he seems wonderfully social (almost needy) and quite fearless.

He does somewhat resemble physically a small Whitey (Mini-Meow?), with the same white nose and a few white strands on his ears. But Oscar has white stretching all the way across his shoulders and dark rear flanks.

Personality wise, Oscar is more like Billy, with confidence to spare and a Happy Tail to show the world it. Oscar also shows a touch of our departed Emily and the retired Kageneko -- he loves affection more than either Catzilla.

He's not as strong as the larger Catzillas, but he jumps well for his size and is quite agile. There is none of the Grey Mouser's clawing his way up something that he can just hop onto.

Oscar has been here 16 hours, and he's already bored with only having a luxury suite so I let him explore the upstairs while the Catzilla brothers were down at breakfast. He trotted happily through all the rooms, and then camped under the bed when I tried to put him in a cat carrier to walk him back up the hall. I do mean camped as opposed to hid, because he wasn't scared -- he just doesn't like carriers. He purred when petted under there, and when he got bored he came out to climb the bedroom cat tower to look out the window at the bird feeder. (And sadly, he was catnapped back to his suite.)

Officially, we should probably quarantine him five days in case he has anything like a kitty cold that we don't want the boys to get. Pragmatically, we doubt it will last much longer than until his first vet visit in a day or so.

Photo Extra: Oscar

Don't let your eyes deceive you, this picture is not of Whitey. Rather, we have a new arrival, Oscar.




Katherine met Oscar last week at Petsmart's Adoption Center, and encouraged me to meet him today. The rest, as they say, is history.

Oscar is small (no Catzilla he) 11 month old neutered male. His adoption page lists him as shy, but we have no idea why -- he's already acting like a lap cat with Katherine, and playing with the other candidates at Petsmart he clearly thinks other cats are his friend.

He even handled the sounds of various legal and illegal fireworks drifting in the windows without too much trouble in his new strange home.

We hope he'll get long with the boys when we introduce them several days from now.

Photo Extra: In The Air Tonight

Whitey knows something is a foot, as the former Grey Mouser's suite has a closed door and a new smell.



Little does he know, we got him a minion! Details to follow...

QOTD

Me: Can you ask Whitey why there is fur all over my keyboard?
Katherine: Uh, He's cleaning his paws and doesn't want to be disturbed.

Photo Friday: Dinner Guests

Katherine had remote help eating earlier in the week. At one point, both boys were staring over her shoulders at me.

Mouse Inspection

The human mouse inspector came today, and found no signs of our departed visitor having brought the family. A few small possible entries into our crawl space will be sealed when he comes back in a couple of weeks to check some traps he left.

The boys were not allowed to help.