(another) new kitten

We adopted two kittens 3 or so months ago. One of our friends needed to place them, and we went and looked with the intention of taking one home for all the normal reasons – daughter loves animals, wife loves animals, husband loves dogs, rodents invade our cars. You know. We were very cautious and patient about introducing them to our dogs, who are all older and haven’t lived much with cats. (To be fair, we had a cat when we got our first dog; and Sheba, having lived on the streets of Jersey, knew cats well, but not in any reassuring way.) When they were all finally introduced, it couldn’t have gone better. Our house was filled with cute cats-trying-to-play-with-old-dogs scenarios and general kitten mayhem.

My daughter liked the names Mocha and Java and they stuck. Together, they’re good names, but as I’d point out to anyone who cared, they don’t work as well on their own. Salt N’ Pepa is a cool name for a group in its own way, but if they broke up, nobody wants to be Salt. Nobody wants to be either Milli or Vanilli. Well, bad example, but you get my meaning.

They’d been free to roam outside before we got them, and after that had reign over all the house, they became anxious to get out. After we’d had their shots caught up, we let them start going out through the dog door, and they loved it. They seemed pretty prudent, too, sticking very close to the house. They’d go on the other side of the wall or climb up in the grape vines, but I never saw them get more than 10 feet away.

Long story short, coyotes took Java one night. We didn’t see it happen or even know the exact moment, but it was during full moon, and we heard tons of them the night she disappeared and the nights after, and Mocha won’t go outside the wall any more – she saw something. We asked the neighbors to keep an eye out and remained hopeful for a little while, but cat-owning friends gently explained that she probably wasn’t coming back. She was a sweet little thing, and since we’d had her and her sister since they were young and been very gentle, they were both really endearing and good natured, even for someone whose love for animals leans toward the canine.

My wife was with the lady who gave them to us, our kids were playing at the community pool, and Anette broke the news. The woman felt bad, but as other cat owners around here had told us, in a word, “it happens.” Next sentence was more or less, “Well, you want the last kitten?” I let my wife decide; I really like the one we have left and the balance of the house is working pretty well. Anyone who has met my wife knows how it worked out, and now we have 2 kittens again. Mocha and Java were both coffee n’ cream colored; there was another pair of almost black ones, and one of them was left. (Oddly parallel – in our pair, one was short haired, one was long haired, same with the almost black ones, lots of coincidences.) I have misgivings about being trusted with another one, but the woman told us that we probably had not much choice about letting them out – they were raised outdoors and pretty used to it. Darwinism seems cruel when you witness it firsthand, though.

We don’t have a name yet, and we’re keeping her inside for at least the first period. We’re probably not going to wait 6 weeks to introduce her to the dogs, but we’re taking it easy and keeping them seperate. Just seems prudent. And the word from the original owner is that she’s pretty skittish, so we’ll give her time to know the house and surroundings so she doesn’t just bolt and try to find her way home. We’ll have to work on a name. Sydney likes the name Watson, but the cat’s a female, and we already have a dog named Watson living with us, so we vetoed. She also likes “kittykittykitty,” and we’ve vetoed that one for different names. So 2 sister kittens, still born on the same day, but the chemistry here’s out of balance again for a while. If she’s anything like the first one, it’ll be mostly fun to work it out.

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