Guests

We have two guests at the Leibrand household this week. My parents have gone to Connecticut to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle, so we are babysitting their two cats, Patches & Jassmine. My parents are glad the cats are staying with us. The cats themselves are not happy about it one little bit. I’m not entirely sure they will ever forgive Mom & Dad, and they haven’t even spent 24 hours at my house yet.

My parents’ cats aren’t real fond of Greg & me to begin with. When we go to over to my parents house, we usually have Carmen and Sophie with us and P & J really don’t like that those dogs come into their home. My dogs just like to sniff them and if they happen to run the girls are happy to chase them, although we immediately discourage that. We’ve managed to train them that when we come over it’s time to hide. By association they don’t like us any more than they like the dogs, although Patches can be bribed with turkey into pretending to like us on occasion. I think if they thought hard enough about it they would be like Si and Am in Lady and the Tramp and play all kinds of mean tricks on the dogs. Luckily for the cats, the dogs never stay too long at their house. Unfortunately for P & J, they are now at the evil dogs’ house.

I brought them home last night after work and just left them in their crates in the living room for a while so everyone could get used to everyone else without the danger of anyone getting hurt. Patches probably has a sore throat today from all the growling she did. Jassmine tried really, really hard to become invisible or maybe she was hoping the towel inside would turn into a magic carpet that would take her home. Either way, they weren’t happy. Carmen & Sophie stuck their noses over for a sniff and got hissed at for their efforts and pretty much ignored them from then on. “More cats, big deal,” they seemed to say. If there hadn’t been further fussing anytime the dogs walked by, they probably would have forgotten all about the newcomers. Cleo acted like she didn’t really care that the crates were growling and hissing at her and just gave them a look. Poor Zinger, like most males, was completely clueless about the intruders until he walked by the crate and it hissed at him. He just about came unglued. I didn’t know his tail could get so fat.

P & J are staying in the spare room for right now and they aren’t very happy about that either. They didn’t want any of their favorite treats last night, thank you very much. They didn’t want to be cuddled or soothed. They didn’t want any water or their cat box. They did not want a guided tour. They just wanted to be crabby and left the hell alone to plot revenge on my mom & dad. When I went in this morning to check on them, it sounded like there was a leaky tire in there with all the hissing and growling going on when they saw me (all other household members are banned from that room). Patches was mad enough that she took a couple of good swipes at my hand when I put her bowl of food by her.

Poor kitties. I feel so badly for them. They are so unhappy. Hopefully in a day or two they will assimilate into the household and feel better. For now, though, they are very un-happy campers. Check back for more updates soon!