Coming Around Again

Raleigh is coming around again. That ugly spaniel regressed a while ago, and started running from me, even though he had been coming up onto my lap almost from the first day he arrived at my apartment. Something frightened him and he took to keeping his distance. Then, suddenly (as cat behaviour often seems to change), he decided to approach me.

Peachy now comes over to me quite frequently, especially before meals are served. He will lean into my hand and enjoy a vigorous head-rub, especially along the bridge of his nose. Oddly, he has not taken to lying on my lap again, and he is still easily spooked, so I am reluctant at this point to try washing his face when I have the opportunity to hold him, even though that droopy countenance needs it constantly. Seizing him and picking him up are only for serious matters; he dislikes these actions right now and I’ll only perform them if I need to attend to something important. But he lets me brush him and I have brushed out a few more of the last mats on his rear right flank.

He also enjoys playing in the shallow boxes and lids strewn on the floor. His many-toed feet can’t grasp things well, but he may actually use that to have fun: I see, and hear, him scrabbling at the bottom and sides of a box, presumably trying to grab a toy.

But when by himself, he can usually be found at the screen door to the ditch. Sometimes, he is in a cat-tree, but most often, he lies or crouches on the carpeted shelf in front of the door. What he can see from that angle must be limited, but he loves the vantage point, so I won’t argue with him.

 Raleigh has turned out to be a prodigious talker. He doesn’t converse all the time, but when he does, he can be most insistent. I don’t know what he is trying to tell me, but I think it is best just to uphold my side of the discussion. He appears to be satisfied with that.

He is the only cat living with me whom I rescued. To the others I have given a home and a family, but I was less involved in the rescues than in their aftermath. The Peach was living in loose association with a feral colony, and with his FIV and stomatitis, I don’t think he would have survived our latest winter, which was a long one. He loves curling up in one of the cat-beds, and he loves his food; nutrition and comfort were two things he probably found in short supply in the wild. He plays and sometimes gives an outsider-cat what-for, because the intruder is coming too close to his home. These too are behaviours he likely would not have known in his previous existence. Inconvenient and frustrating at times, worrisome and expensive at others, I am nonetheless glad Raleigh is here. I suppose that’s good, because he may be here a while…