Thursday, March 15, 2012

If we only knew.....

Mom has read the book "Homer's Odyssey" about Homer the Blind Cat. (and if you haven't read the book, mom HIGHLY recommends it)  He has his own website and blog and facebook and everything. Anyhow, they lost their older cats and after a long thought period, decided to get another cat. She is an adult calico now named Stella. You can see the whole blog post here.

But there was one paragraph in the blog post that mom said she could relate to:
"Stella, of course, has no way of knowing that Homer is crying to be with me. All she knows is that Homer is loudly demanding entry into “her” side of our home. She hisses at him through the gate, but a little hissing has never fazed Homer. Scarlett used to hiss at him all the time, but neither of them was ever looking for a fight, and Scarlett never did more than hiss, so Homer’s philosophy when it comes to another cat hissing is pretty much, “Oh, hush, you old crank.” When the hissing has no effect, Stella crouches down, flattens her ears and whiskers, puffs up her fur, etc. But Homer, naturally, can’t see any of this and thus can’t pick up on any visual cues that Stella is becoming increasingly agitated. And Stella, who has no idea that Homer can’t see, clearly views Homer’s indifference as a signal that she needs to ratchet up the aggressive behavior in order to get her message across."

We had something similar with Junior when he got here.
(can you believe he used to be that little????)

He was our first venture into feral kittens. Maybe a little too old, but mom just couldn't be ok with putting this cute face back outside.....

So, he would get mad and hiss at the rest of us. Which, after lots of foster kittens, we ignore. Plus, he was little and not very scary. And after a few days, he caught on - hissing isn't going to work and should be ignored. And then Maestro hissed at him to get Junior to leave - and Junior ignored Maestro (and mom cracked up when Junior got whacked for insubordination). We were lucky in that Junior, in being a social dork, didn't feel the need to challenge the status quo and settled in well.

We wish Homer, his new sisfur Stella and the parents the best....we know they can work through this..... and hope Stella doesn't start using the MUCH smaller Homer for target practice. :)

(Junior now....haha)

10 comments:

  1. I adore Homer and read his book. I don't go to the website so I didn't know about his sisfur. Homer must be getting on in years now. Junior...my mom said she couldn't resist that sweet face either. Seeing them settle must be quite the adventure from all mom and I have read thru the years. Mom's a coward and never tried iadding brofurs and sisfurs. xoxox

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  2. That sounds like the kind of book that would get mom all leaky!
    Play bows,
    Zim

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  3. Own... My post today is like this.

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  4. Animals always seem (for the most part) to work it out

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  5. Yes, that Homer is very special! So are you Junior!

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  6. I know it used to totally tick off Star when Leo would ignore her hissing. Now days he hisses right back, but that took almost a year before he would do anything but ignore it!
    Junior grew up adorable!

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  7. so interesting, the nuances of our kitty behavior :) We'll have to add Homer's book to our reading list. All the best for him and Stella! Junior sure is handsome! (and a cute baby too! :D)

    Pip, SMidgen, Minnie, Hollie

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  8. We lubs Homer! Uh, Juniros not so Junior now, eh? Too much kibble ;-) ?

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  9. We want to read Homer's book. Well, the mum does, we have no thumbs to turn the pages.

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