New Family Member

All hail Lenny. Prince of Cats.

Actually, Lenny is from a broken home - a violent partnership where the man involved has done something so bad that Lenny could not stand to be near the husband of the lovely woman who was fostering him on behalf of the cats' protection league. He would, apparently hiss and spit at S. when he walked by Lenny's pen and S. was quite perturbed - he couldn't be near Lenny for fear of being savaged and for a man who loves and cares for cats so much, that's hard.

So it was with some trepidation that TSK entered Lenny's pen, having watched from the kitchen window whilst Lenny and this Trep had a quick and happy introduction. Lenny was by no means enthralled by TSK's presence in the pen but there was no hissing, no spitting, no growling and TSK was quite well behaved too. Lenny even chanced receiving a stroke from TSK and ate a little food from the bowl he offered before slinking away into his fluffy hidey hole.

I loved Lenny straight away. He's shy but reasonably forthcoming with me as a stranger. He's white, oh so white with black ears and face and a black back and tail. His whiskers ping! at you in white on black and his little black nose is shiny and inquisitive. He's a big cat for a yearling and I could tell there was a twinge of adventure in him. I could not wait to rescue him from his fears and his cold, outside pen.

TSK loved him to! Oh joy of joys. Lenny was to come home with us. I kept asking to make sure that TSK was OK with Lenny. I didn't want to saddle him with a cat that only likes me because TSK likes cats just as much as me - if not more. But he was fine with it all - prepared to accept a challenge, prepared to accept the odd nip and scratch, prepared to sacrifice a finger or the occasional arm, prepared to be ignored for a while.

We took Lenny home - a traumatic ride in the vanu, sitting in the new cat box but his fosterers sacrificed their blanket to travel with him to give him some comfort.

Back at the Orchard, Lenny took his first steps out of the cat box. Our intention was to show him where the litter tray and food and water was but before that, he legged it under the kitchen cabinets and there he stayed for the rest of the night. I knew I should've finished the kickboards before I got the cat.

I spent the night worrying about what to do. Would Lenny come to spend the rest of his life under the cabinets if we left him to his own devices? Would he never experience the joy of family life if he didn't push himself to try it just once? Would I have to get down on my belly on the tile floor and pull a screaming hissing cat out from under the cabinets?

You can imagine my relief when, this morning, he was happily lying on his fluffy cushion in the middle of the floor?

He took tentative steps over to his food and ate carefully from the bowl, watching me all the while.

He had a stroke, he had a cuddle. I got TSK to feed him some leftover chicken scraps.

You can imagine our surprise when this was allowed to happen...

and those are TSK's arms, not mine.

All hail Lenny, prince of cats.