Hello Rosie!

Such a pretty girl!

This little cutie joined our family on August 3. She came from FOHA, which is where we also got Eddie. They named her Rose, because though she was not more than a baby herself, she gave birth to kittens under a rose bush in Shenandoah County. She came to FOHA with her babies, who all got adopted before her.

When I went to visit the cattery in search of a new kitty, she was in a room all by herself. They said she "shut down" when they tried to have her in "gen pop" (my words, not theirs!) with the other cats. So she had her own area, which was right next to where the kittens were. I went in and sat down, with the hopes that she'd come out from hiding behind the couch to get some pets, and sure enough she did! She was still skittish, but she came out. The FOHA worker was surprised that she came out for me (Tod says she played me like a fiddle). I'd originally been thinking of getting two cats, or a cat and a kitten. But Rose was my favorite of the cats, and it didn't seem she wanted a cat roommate just yet, so we decided to just get her and then maybe add another cat later (her foster mom thinks she'd do best if a kitten was the new friend, so we will keep that in mind). 

We are not great at naming pets, but we did try on several names for size – Olive, Betty, Dolly. Reed's suggestion of 'iPhone' was soundly rejected, though. In the end, we decided that Rosie suited her and also honored her difficult life before she came to us. 

Trouble!!

It is wonderful to have a cat again. We kept her in the office for the first few days, and she didn't really hide in there much at all, she would come out to get pets pretty easily. And after a couple days she was very interested in what was going on outside the office, particularly with regard to Shelby. Plus, while Diesel stayed with us recently, he dug up carpet by the door, and she was doing that too (not that our carpet's not totally ruined already, but still). So we probably let her out too early. Then it became a game of figuring out where she was hiding. Mostly under our bed at first. Then in the storage area in the basement. Then I couldn't find her, and was sure she had to be in the storage area somewhere. Well, it never occurred to me to look UP, but that's where she was – up in the rafters (is that what they're called in a basement??). Then she was MIA for an overnight and I started to get worried that with the construction we've had that there was some way she managed to escape. The search focused again on the storage area. Tod was the one to spot her. It's tough to explain, but she'd gone inside the bulkhead (i.e. near the ceiling) in between the wall and the duct work, and she'd gone clear across the house, probably 20 feet back, and into an area that seemed like indeed it might have led to the outside if she tried hard. We were able to lure her to a visible location, but she didn't come down. We made a couple of paths where she could more easily jump down and I sat nearby and talked to her in the hopes that she'd come down. No luck. I decided I'd sit somewhere nearby but not visible to her. Sure enough it wasn't long before she was meowing, and we hadn't heard a peep out of her up until then. She seemed to be saying she didn't know how to get down. I tried to encourage her to use the paths we made or try to figure out how to reverse how she got there in the first place but it wasn't working. So when she came near enough, I grabbed her and had a heck of a time keeping her from slipping away again (there may have been some tail grabbing). She scratched me up pretty good but I managed to get her out of there. Needless to say she's not allowed in the storage area any longer.

It's a bummer that our never-ending construction meant that we weren't able to get a new cat until it was close to time for the kids to leave for college. She has slowly been becoming more brave about being out and about, but has spent a lot of time under our bed. Amy made a big effort to gain her confidence, and made a lot of progress. She is still trying to learn what all the sounds in our house are, so she knows she's safe. Shelby is still a bit too excited about her. But I think it won't be long before she's hanging out with us all the time and Shelby is her pal. Maybe one day she'll even be a lap cat. Right now she LOVES pets and will sometimes sit near you but not on you. We're all still getting to know each other, and it is wonderful.