Different With Four

The reports from Percival’s new home are good. Though they came to me only a couple of hours after his arrival there, Perce’s reactions were as I suspected. He didn’t hide, but immediately began exploring the new environment, rubbing up against objects and people and using the litter-box. After a sudden change, cats have, I’ve noticed, can be quite excited, only to have a reaction, similar to homesickness, a little later. After this, however, they start adapting. I suspect this is what Perce will experience. I will keep readers apprised.

Once again, the departure of one cat seems to make life simpler at the Cosy Apartment – though that departure is never unregretted. While I still have four to look after, feeding times are smoother; Percy can be inconstant in his gastronomical desires.

Dabney seems to be feeling much less restricted. He spent much of the morning running about, throwing himself into the nylon tunnel and the nylon cube, racing to the tops of cat-trees and down again. I think that he, as well, sees that he has greater access to me, and is using it.

The hostility that he evinced toward Percival was personal. For some reason, he disliked Percy; that didn’t change, though Percy sometimes facilitated it by following Dabs and staring at him, when avoiding the other cat would have lessened tension. My lean, bumpy-headed cat (his outsider-cat wounds have left uneven scabs and scars on his pate) has no trouble with the oldsters here, largely ignoring them, except when they are in the path of his exuberance.

As for Imogen, she dislikes Dabney, though I see no chance of a fight. She will hiss and growl at Bumps from a distance, and woe to him if he comes too close. Last night, he inadvertently narrowed propinquity, innocently trying to get by Miss Silky to see out the sliding glass door to the ditch, and elicited a fierce hiss from which he cringed like Oliver Twist confronted by the beadle. (I don’t mind Imo showing Dabney who’s in charge; I prefer it to her being frightened in her own home.) It doesn’t help that Dabs likes the cylinder-house of the cylinder-house cat-tree. Imogen prefers the top (at least in the warm weather) and having Dabney underneath her is highly undesired.

Still, all is going well here. I can leave Bumps out all night and, assuming things go well today, will leave him out tomorrow when I go to work. It’s a quiet life again in the Cosy Apartment. For now.