When Shasta was a tiny kitten, our old Rita cat did not affectionately approve of her presence. However, Rita dealt with Shasta's intrusion by ignoring Shasta, thus remaining secure in her queen hood in our home until her death at 18.
George wandered in 2 years ago half starved as a 4-6 month old kitten with beautiful long black, white and brown fur. He has the air of an ephemeral waif who may not be long for this world. He doesn't have a lot of sense, being fearless, standing down huge dogs who wander in our back yard. He's killed many birds and mice, always presenting them to us on the porch. He wanders all around the neighborhood accepting love and attention from whoever offers it. He's already lost a couple of his nine lives, one to the squirrel who lives in our tree (we think) who sunk his teeth deep into George's flesh under one front leg. That took weeks to heal!
For these two years, Shasta has picked fights with George whenever he did anything she did not like, George's existence being the thing she dislikes most! She hisses and shoots out her paw and they go at it, chasing, caterwauling, wrestling. (Maybe it was Shasta's teeth in George's flesh!)
And for two years we've been making comments out loud about how Shasta is jealous of and threatened by George, etc., etc. Two days ago, I decided it was time Shasta learned to accept that she has a brother. So I told her that George was her brother and she needed to be nice to him. I told her several different times, while I petted and held her. Today I haven't observed any altercations. The most amazing thing, though, is they both slept on the same bed all morning! We'll see if the truce holds up.
1 comment:
Wow, your parenting skills even work with cats!
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