Kitty integration continues. Overall, things continue to go well. Sylvia and Pippin play regularly. Perhaps once or twice a day, they zoom around the apartment after each other, taking turns who chases whom, and punctuated by wrestling matches. When Pippin gets out of hand, Sylvia corrects him with a short hiss or growl, but there’s no menace in it. We were a bit worried about her though. She can go into what we call “vampire” mode when wrestling with us – eye jet black, fangs showing, and far too amp-ed up. We have to pull back and wait for her to calm down. Now, we’re OK because as large as she is, as Jonathan would say “I’m the biggest predator”.
But she’s MUCH bigger than Pippin at the moment. However, she seems to get that her role is different as the Big Sister. Once or twice she’s gotten too enthusiastic, but then we see her disengage and give herself a moment to chill. We’ve also seen her pull back periodically when wrestling to check that Pippin is still having fun and give him a chance to back up. For the most part, she looks for signals that Pippin wants to play. Pippin? He does not yet get that he should check first and pounce after. This behavior has earned him a few hisses.
However, it’s not all roses. Sylvia isn’t interested in cuddling or joint grooming sessions. And yesterday she clearly was a bit fed up with Pippin all up in her space. It is clear that they are both happy to share, but don’t fully agree on what sharing means. For Pippin, “share” mean Do Everything Together. Eat together, play together, sleep together. If he hears her doing something fun, he’ll be there in a flash to be part of the fun. New treat? He wants some too. For Sylvia, this is only part of sharing. She’s actually pretty generous with sharing food, even eating from the same dish together on occasion:
But she also thinks sharing should sometimes mean Taking Turns. You get to play with the toy, then I get to play with the toy. We don’t always have to play with the same toy at the same time. And yesterday this lack of turn taking sharing had clearly come to a head. He got a number of hisses, growls, and even whacks, which probably looked like they came out of nowhere to poor confused Pippin. But she’d had two weeks of no time to play with me without him popping up to be part of the fun. Little siblings can be so annoying sometimes!
He seemed to start to get a clue at the end of the day. I sent him off chasing a bouncy ball so she and I could have some laser pointer time, and when we went to bed he actually stayed put while I went with her to her activity board for a final snack.
Today, things seem to be on a more even keel and they’ve been playing again. Pippin has also given Sylvia a bit more space to enjoy a petting session or a bit of play with me and only me.
Oh, and I’m instituting a new “no cat chases across the bed at night” rule. Can you guess why this is needed?