She’s one! She made it through being born into a very weird home to coming to our wonderful home, through pneumonia, staying at the vet overnight and them telling me they didn’t know if she would make it, fleas, worms, various mysterious bouts of stool issues, bottle feeding and hunger strikes…

And now she’s my beautiful, healthy, mischievous, fluffy, soft, sweet voiced Ragdoll who is as of recently *starting to become cuddly, too!!!*

Happy first birthday little Aura Cakes McGee!

Spotted this love fest happening today and quickly got it on film…forever…with my camera phone. I think that’s all that really needs to be said about this photo.

I can’t believe how long it has been since I posted. The excitement and worry of dealing with Charlie’s feline asthma seems like old news now. He hasn’t coughed since September 1st and is a pro with his asthma inhaler.  Yesterday, Charlie needed his teeth cleaned. They extracted 6 teeth, including his one last “fang.” I miss that fang. My poor old man is pretty gummy now. He is resting.

Introducing Our New Kitten

The biggest excitement and challenge we’ve been having around here is the addition of our newest employee, a Ragdoll mix kitten! Charlie is not fond of cats, or really any person or animal for that matter, so I knew getting a new pet would be a challenge. That is why, rather than getting an older cat out of the shelter, I searched for a Ragdoll kitten. Although there is no guarantee, Ragdolls were bred to be gentle and loving, and I needed that for Charlie (and I wanted some hope to find a cat half as sweet as Oscar was). I also knew I should find a young kitten and a female, to help make the introduction as smooth as possible.

Feeding Raw to the Kitten

The good thing about getting a kitten is it’s easier to start her off on the right path with good food. I started her on grain free canned, and started mixing Nature’s Variety raw medallions into it. But when she saw that Charlie was eating just raw, she wanted his. So at 12 weeks she is already on raw food! She seems to prefer the raw to the canned, but will eat both.

Yesterday I tried something new. I offered whole prey for the first time. I didn’t think she would go for the tiny thawed out pinky mouse, but she ate it right up! So, I plan to offer whole prey at least a few times a week, and this will help insure that she won’t have to undergo a terrible procedure like Charlie did yesterday.

Enjoy the pictures of our new kitten. Her name is Aura, after the blue cheese: we picked her up near a cheese store we enjoy, and her eyes are (obviously) blue.

Introducing the New Kitten to the Resident Cat

The introduction was pretty rough at first. We kept Aura secluded in her own room for about three weeks while Charlie got used to her smell. This was mainly due to the fact that Charlie would have reacted badly, but it also served two other purposes:

1. I needed to be sure she was free of diseases, fleas, and parasites before exposing another cat to any of that. So while usually I would be doing smell exchanges by transferring towels between Aura and Charlie, I didn’t do that either until I could be certain that Aura was healthy.
2. to let the kitten get used to her new home gradually. A new home has a lot of new sounds and smells, and that can overwhelm and stress a kitten. On day one all she did was sleep. She didn’t even care if I was in the room, she ignored me.

After one full week of NO interaction between Charlie and the kitten, I cracked the door and asked Charlie to look in. He would hiss and run. Perfectly normal. Then I started bringing out Aura to the kitchen in her crate during Charlie’s meal times. Charlie didn’t appreciate that. Even though he could see that she was confined and eating her own food, he was still too anxious to eat his meals.

I then purchased two baby gates to use instead of the door to Aura’s room, so Charlie could hear and smell her better, and so we could get into the room without Aura running out. Then Charlie began sitting outside her room to watch her, but any movement by her caused him to hiss and run.

After 3 1/2 weeks of this, I was feeling very bad that Aura couldn’t spend much time out in the house with us. So, I brought Aura into the living room with us and put the baby gates at the two entry ways, giving Charlie access to all of the house except the living room. I then played with the kitten and showed Charlie that she was fun and welcome. After a few minutes of watching us have fun, Charlie wanted to come into the living room with us. That was the moment everything changed. He jumped a baby gate while Aura was resting, and laid down on the couch near me, hissing once just to make his pressence known to the little intruder. Later, Charlie went to sleep on the big chair and Aura jumped up on the ottoman in front of it. Charlie hissed, and Aura layed down slowly. Charlie then put his head down and the two went to sleep.

The two aren’t best friends and probably never will be. But considering Charlie is 14, he is doing great. They do play and scrap, and sometimes they sleep within a few feet of each other. Aura is a bundle of energy and Charlie is dealing with that wonderfully. He still growls and hisses at her, but she attacks him anyway. I try to distract her with toys when I feel that Charlie would like a break, but overall I think the kitten is giving Charlie an energy boost.

For a while I’ve been enjoying the beautiful art of pet photography by great pet photographers like Cowbelly and Fat Orange Cat Studio. But those photographers are located in Seattle and Boston respectively! They are across the country from each other and nowhere near me in Ohio.

So imagine my delight when I found one nearby; a truly artistic pet photographer who takes beautiful pictures that invoke spirit and personality, not just boring posed shots in flat lighting.

And it that weren’t cool enough, turns out she is also a former animal trainer and dog training instructor. So I had to write about her.

Click here to read all about this great photographer and see more of her pictures.