Squinty

About a month ago, we brought a new cat into our foster program. Rescuing cats is a frustrating ordeal. Because there is such a problem with kitty overpopulation, finding homes for our wonderful kitties is a long process. If you can pick a cute kitten up off the street or from a shelter any time you turn around, why would you want to jump through all the hoops of a rescue group to adopt a (slightly) less cute adult cat. But that being said, we love rescuing cats. From pulling stray cats (that don't want to be stray) off the street to helping sick kitties in need from shelters, rescuing cats can be very rewarding. Our most recent "addition" is named Squinty.

Squinty is, as his name implies, squinty. We're in the process of figuring out why, but in the meantime, it makes him super cute and loveable. In addition to his squinty eyes, he's also morbidly obese. Squinty came from a colony of rescued cats that live in a place akin to kitty heaven. But unlike many of the cats in the colony, Squinty wanted more. Squinty wanted a home to call his own with people that love an adore him. So when I met him, I instantly fell in love. Knowing that he would take a while to place, I had to wait until a spot opened up in my home. About a month ago, after placing Smokey and euthanizing Yum Yum (a sad story for another time), I finally brought Squinty home.

Squinty has had a rough transition to household life. Never having been an actual pet, he is working on figuring out exactly what that means. He LOVES attention, but still worries about quick movement. He's a big fan of the dog in his foster home too. He's been spending the past few weeks in the furnished basement as he adjust to being in a house, so that he doesn't have to immediately be in the mix of things. For the first few days, he hid in a corner of the basement (there are lots of nooks and crannies) and refused to talk to anyone. Only a used litter box and empty food bowl let me know that he was alive and well. After a few days, however, he started peeking his head out when I came downstairs. A few days later, he started emerging for snuggles. Now, every day when I open the door to the basement, he's sitting one step higher on the stairs, as if to say, "I'm almost ready to see what's going on up there...".

So this morning before going to work, I opened the door at the top of the stairs and just left it open. It took him a few minutes, but Squinty finally emerged for a few minutes, sniffing the house, the other cats, and the dog, before deciding his adventure was complete for the day and running back downstairs. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow, he'll stay for a little longer. And hopefully in a week or two, he'll decide that he's ready to move upstairs permanently, and join the family. When that happens, he'll go up on the website and start looking for a home. Like many of our kitties, it may be another 6 months or a year until he finally finds his forever home, but we all know that the wait is worth it.