Mimi

On Saturday we went to a pet shop to look at tortoises. We came home with a cat.

The pet shop was selling kittens, which is something that I don't agree with in the slightest, but they all looked increadibly happy and healthy, so I was appeased! In the other corner there was a cat that looked scared half to death. She was crouched in the corner, all wide-eyed and shaking. Poor little mite. I left the shop really upset, and sent my Mum a text message asking if she wanted another cat, because there was a cat in Kilburn that needed springing from a pet shop! Mum agreed, and got quite excited about it, she's going through a stressful period and it's taking her mind off it quite nicely.

So we picked up the kitty on our way back from Sainsbury's. The girl in the shop was really upset at the state she was in, I was really upset to see the cat so sad and so the deal was done. I asked how they got the cat, and apparently her owner had come in with her kittens a few weeks ago, then a week later had brought the cat. The pet shop had originally refused the cat because she was so frightened and in a bit of a state, but her owner just dropped her on the floor and walked out.

When we got her home, we put her in the bath in her carry case until we decided where to keep her. We ended up allowing her the hall and kitchen (the kitchen doesn't have a door) so we put her in the hall, opened her carry case and sat and talked to her. She wasn't in any hurry to come out, she looked a bit dozy. I tickled her under the chin and she purred. Purring! This from the cat who had savaged half the pet shop staff and was quaking with fear and litterally crapped herself from being so scared. So she purred and purred and lay with her head sticking out of her carry case! After a little while she ran off for an explore and ended up under the kitchen cabinets. She only came out when DH and I were in the kitchen making dinner, so I let her into the living room and she sat under the sofa for the rest of the evening, even while we had friends round. She occasionally made herself known with loud meows!

On Saturday night we shut her in the kitchen and hall and she cried all night. Sunday morning, she was still under the kitchen cabinets, so I gave her a little cuddle. We went off to watch the Marathon and were out pretty much all day but when we came back she was still under the cabinets!

I thought I'd coax her out with a shoelace sprayed with catnip, she came out for a little play and a bit of a cuddle. Then she found the patch of floor where I'd sprayed catnip and the stoner-cat came out! She was so happy, so friendly and pestering me for cuddles and head-banging and tickles under the chin! While I was making dinner I found some turkey in the fridge, and she's been standing on her back paws for it. Now she won't leave me alone! She migrated to the living room last night and she's shut in there now so that she won't escape when we have the front door open. I was up a couple of times in the night and both times she was following me meowing for cuddles. She's washing, and happy and is a little pest most of the time but I'd rather have a pest than a scaredy-cat!