Razorback Kat

I was pleased when Stromboli came off the drugs with no signs of a dependency issue. I was very concerned that I was going to have to find the feline equivalent for the Betty Ford Clinic after the move to Davis was complete. Instead, she was back to normal the day after her last dose of tranquilizers.

By normal, I mean running from one window in my room to the other at until 2:30 in the morning to stare at something outside and occasionally stopping to swat at the houseplant on my night stand. After that, she would go to her normal sleeping place in between my legs, alternating between under the cover and on top of the covers.

She was less afraid of her new surroundings after this move than she was the first time when she went from my old apartment to Suzannes. Within a day or two, she showed extreme interest in the world outside of my room. Basically, this manifested in one of two behaviors. Either should would lay at my door and scratch at it when I was in the room, or she would sit at the door and try to bolt out when I was entering through the room. This continued until Thursday, when I started the introduction to the three resident dogs.

These dogs are Jenna, Chance and Ross. Jenna and Chance are both border collies, like Scottland's dog, only of the short haired variety. Ross is a big, late adult german Sheppard looking thing. He's what we call a "Large Dog." It's clear that Ross has issues that probably stem from mishandling when he was a puppy. Of all the dogs, I was the most worried about the interaction between Ross and Stromboli. So, the reason why she was cloistered in my room for two weeks is because I wanted to get to know the dogs first.

After about two weeks, I had sufficiently convinced myself that while Stromboli may be freaked out by the dogs, she was not likely to be attacked or hurt by them. So, we began the controlled interactions and nighttime visits. For a couple of hours each night, I would allow her to roam the house and explore. Carolyn (the owner of the dogs) sleeps in her room with the dogs and keeps the door to her room shut. She certainly enjoyed being able to do this, but it also seriously increased her desire to leave my room, and the scratching at the door greatly increased. During the controlled interactions, I would hold Stromboli and pet her while sitting in my room while Carolyn sat outside the door of my room with her dogs.

After a couple of these sessions it came time for the first interaction. Essentially, Carolyn and I sat like we did in the controlled interactions but let the animals act as they would. Carolyn has trained her dogs to never go in the rooms of the other roommates and they generally obey. So, everything was pretty much up to Stromboli. Apparently, she is remarkably brave. Either that or she's so curious she's gonna wind up killed one of these days. She went right up to Jenna and started sniffing noses. Then she headed into Carolyn's room to sniff around. That's where she met Chance for the first time. She was pretty apprehensive about the whole thing and moved VERY slowly. Chance just sort of stood there and sniffed her while she looked around.

Stromboli's exposure to Ross was a bit more dicey. It was pretty clear from the controlled interactions that she was far more afraid of Ross because of his size (Ross is a large sized dog) than anything. Anytime she saw Ross, she would puff up to twice her size and become, as I affectionately called her, Razorback the Kat. If Ross came too close, she would hiss at him. If Ross started to come in my room (which he occasionally does when he forgets he's not supposed to be in there) she'll hulk out, hiss and start growling at him. Ross doesn't really react to this, although one time he growled at her when she came into Carolyn's room. Apparently, Ross doesn't like it when cats get near his food bowl.

So, Stromboli is acclimating pretty well to a household that has dogs. All in all, she's far more frightened of the vacuum cleaner than of the canines. That makes me pretty happy. Now if I could just get her to stop running from window to window at 2:30 in the morning.