Feeding time here at the house often falls to me, when I’m home (Dad takes the honor of feeding the dogs when I’m not, and I feed the cats when I get home). I actually enjoy it, for some reason; I like the feeling of preparing it all, of caring for all the babies. It makes me feel very motherly.

I prefer to do the feeding assembly-line style. It’s not as easy as you might think, because every single pet in this house (and there’s five of them) gets different food. Yes, you heard me right - all of them get different food. This wasn’t really by design either.

First there’s the dogs. They’re on different food because of their ages: Oreo’s on senior dog food, and Tess is on puppy food (but not for much longer, she’ll be switched to adult food but they’ll still be different). They both get fed twice a day, but Oreo gets canned food and Tess doesn’t.

The cats, three of them, are similar. Tuffy gets senior canned food, because of his very advanced age (he’s 15 now). Angel actually refused to eat canned food before I got here and bought him his own food - I’m not sure if he just didn’t like what Tuffy ate (for the past 5 years) or if he wanted his own dish to eat from or what. Angel still only nibbles at the canned food, so I get him the small cans of food - and I get him special formuly for hairballs, since he’s constantly hacking them up (yuck). Those two cats do share dry food, though, but that’s always available for them.

My cat eats normal adult canned cat food, but man is he a pig. My parents were totally astonished when they saw how much I was feeding the little man - he’s a smaller cat than either Angel or Tuffy, and yet he eats at least three times as much. As a comparison, he gets the same amount of canned food a day that Oreo does (and she’s 42lbs). And he’s constantly yowling for more.

So I dish out all the food in the very different, unique bowls: Tessa gets several cups of dry food in whatever large dish is handy, Oreo gets a carefully measured portion of dry and canned in her purty purple bowl, Tuffy gets his canned food in the plastic fish-shaped bowl that mom bought for him, Angel gets a small dallop of canned food in a normal bowl, and Joey gets his canned food in the cute fish-decorated ceramic bowl I got for him. Tessa gets hers first because, one, she drools horrifically while she’s waiting for her dinner, and two, she tends to shove the other pets out of her way to get whatever food is available. She’s also fed outside because, well, she dives head-first into her bowl and knocks kibble everywhere. She does vacuum it up afterwards, but still, outside she’s out of the way for a few minutes. Then Oreo gets her bowl, which she daintily eats about ten times slower than Tessa. (Actually, Tessa’s usually barking at the door wanting in so she can eat everyone else’s food by the time I put Oreo’s dish on the floor, no lie.) I put down Angel’s dish where the dogs can’t get it and try to shoo Joey away from it, then take Joey’s dish down the hall to my room to where his dishes are all set up. He runs in between my legs the entire time I’m walking, I’ve tripped over him so many times. And the last time I did, he swatted me, the little bugger. Last is usually Tuffy is sometimes fed in the middle, sometimes first, sometimes last. He gets his food outside on the patio table.

And all the pets know when it’s dinner time. Angel’s quickly learning about this new fed-at-one-time deal now that he’s eating canned food. Joey is always yowling for food and giving me dirty looks when I don’t immediately fill up his bowl - and at dinner time when I call him he comes running with many chirps and chidings. The dogs, they are the best time-keepers of all, they will come and stare at you at exactly 6pm. And stare. And stare. The past weekend when we turned our clocks back for daylight savings time, they were both so upset! It always takes them a while to adjust to that.

But even though it’s messy and loud and slobbery, I love it.

:: ::

Another catfight tonight, although it was less of a “fight” and more of Angel freaking out and spitting and growling. So I poked Cory awake and went to investigate. Sure enough Joey’s standing on the table above Angel, looking down, and Angel’s flattened to the floor with his ears pinned back, growling and hissing menacingly. Well, it would be menacingly if his body language didn’t very clearly say, “Don’t touch me! Oh my god, don’t touch me!” Joey has stopped looking even remotely mean when he does this, he’s more like a kitty stalking his favorite toy. His tail swishes, he crouches, he sneaks up, then when caught he looks around like he wasn’t doing anything at all. He gets very easily distracted and runs off if he finds something more fun to do. Too bad Angel can’t be so lighthearted.

So Cory goes over to Angel and pets him and speaks softly to calm him down. You don’t really want to pick up a totally freaking out cat like that, so he moved him by sliding him across the linolium. LOL! It was so funny, Cory just pushes him carefully across the floor, all the while Angel remains in the same position, growling. After a few minutes Cory picked him up to take him away. All I could hear was, “Rrrrrrrrrrr!” as the big grey fuzzball was lifted. But it’s very unlikely Angel would strike out at Cory, even as upset as that. Hasn’t yet. Just makes a lot of noise.

Joey, on the other hand… you just don’t pick up when he’s agitated. Or try… try is as far as I got, last time!

Joey’s still been stalking Angel, but I’m not putting myself in the middle of it anymore, other than trying to keep them seperated.

Middle of the night tonight, Angel was apparently left indoors, and not kept in Cory’s room. *sigh* So I hear a catfight break out in the kitchen. I go to see, Angel’s growling from the kitchen nook, Joey’s on the floor, tail swishing. So I just watch for a bit. And what does Joey do? He flops down, then starts rolling about on his back. ?! I don’t even know where to begin interpreting that behavior.

You’d think he was maybe trying to play with Angel, but if you could see the way he stalks him and then glares at him, I just don’t think that’s it. There has to be a fight for dominance going on here. I think Angel’s going to loose.

Today was day three of introductions between Angel and Joey. Cory refused to help (lard-butt), but my cousin helped. She just sat in my room with Joey, while I got Angel on the other side of the door and tried to set him at ease. He doesn’t actually like food very much at all, so I’m basically just sitting him down and petting and massaging him, which he loves. I cracked open the door and elicited another nervous hiss from Angel, who then backed up a foot and layed down. He seems okay with that, just watching. Joey just peeked out curiously. Later tonight I found Angel laying at the top of the stairs looking down the hall as if waiting to see what would emerge from my bedroom, lol.

I wish I had some way of leaving the door open a crack to let them just watch each other - I think it would be really good for them to have a non-stressful period to do that. Unfortunately that’s not really available in a house with two curious dogs wandering around - I have to lock them both in a room while I do this or else they both nose around and upset the kitties.

But I think it’s progress simply to have Angel laying down while in eyesight of Joey, instead of lunging and hissing. I am still confident he will do well with this introduction and they can become friends.

Tuffy now, I have no idea how he’ll react, if at all, but he almost never comes inside anymore - and he avoids all the other animals, period. I tried doing an introduction at the door like Angel, but he wouldn’t even stay still in the hallway, he ran downstairs. All the other animals make him nervous. Poor old man.

I am really not understanding Angel. He is showing NO signs of… well, anything. Joey was out exploring the house a little today and ended up in the dining room by the sliding glass door - where on the other side Angel was laying there. They saw each other. Joey crouched down in a kind of frightened look, not sure what to do - but didn’t leave. Angel sauntered over to the glass and sat there, looking at me. No reaction to Joey at all.

So then I put Joey in his carrier and put him in the living room, I cracked open the door. Angel sniffed around, then meowed to be let in. I opened the door. Angel walked in, sniffed the carrier… and then walked off downstairs.

What the hell?

I am flat out exhausted, but just wanted to say that Joey made it through the flights just fine - and he was actually rather quiet for most of the flights. He didn’t like being carried around and definitely did not appreciate the turbulance we went through, and yowled quite vocally to express his displeasure, but it all went well.

The pets here look good, though a bit bedraggled. Does no one brush them? Bah. We’ve only really let Joey meet Oreo - the others have been kept out. Oreo’s such a doll, she just went up wagging her tail, Joey watched warily and then hissed, which caused Oreo to walk dejectedly away. That was it. I expect it’ll only get better.

Cory did have the bright idea on seeing how Angel would react - the outcome is “not well.” Angel tried to launch himself at the hiding Joey (never seen that before, not from that cat), and Cory withstood a clawed arm because of it (and I told him it served him rights). So that introduction is going to have to be taken much much more slowly.

As I write, Joey has walked into the bedroom where Oreo is sleeping on the bed. I knew they’d be good together.

Tessa loves to crawl on your lap while playing. It’s a safe place to be. She’ll grab a toy and shake it around, then scooch back until she can sit her bum on you, then continues happily munching on the toy.

The girl has jaws of steel, already. I remember when we got Oreo we had to search for an extra-soft toy just so she could squeak it. Her favorite became a little rubber dinosaur, because it was the only one she could squeak (until she killed it). Tessa, however, delights in finding the “sweet spot” in Oreo’s toys and then just squeaking the hell out of it. All you’ll hear is SQUEE-ka, SQUEE-ka, SQUEE-ka, SQUEE-ka, SQUEE-ka. Jaws of steel, I tell ya.

I’m utterly amazed at how well Oreo and her get along. Oreo growls and snarls when Tessa gets close… and Tessa barks and barks back. But when Tessa backs off, Oreo steps closer and nudges the toy she’s holding closer to Tess, as if to say, “Come on! Come get it!” It’s very cute. Also, they switch toys indiscriminately. Oreo will step away from her toy to go see the cat, and Tess will swipe it. So Oreo will just snag another toy and walk away happily. Oreo has chased Tessa around a few times, some playfully, some not. But even when she’s snapping and snarling, she could easily pin Tess down and bite her - but doesn’t. Yesterday Oreo was just laying on the couch and Tess was barking at her and bugging her. Oreo leaned down and SNAP, jaws close well away from Tess in an almost pantomimed motion. I get the feeling most of her growls are just for show.

Angel, however, is really not thrilled. It’s funny, because Oreo can walk right up to him, and Angel just cranes his head to try to see around her at the evil little puppy. I find it amusing. I mean, how can anyone be afraid of something that bites its own tail and trips over its own feet? Angel sometimes lays down in the hallway, preventing Tessa from getting through. Angel will smack Tess if she gets too close, and she knows it. Whether or not he uses his claws is unknown, though she’s never gotten actually hurt from any of his smacks. Most of the time I’ve seen it, his paws don’t have that lightning-fast attack speed that cats use to deal out damage. It’s more like a warning swat. Oh good grief, right now Tessa is under my desk and Angel is on top of it, hanging over the edge to keep an eye on her.

Tuffy is the one who seems least affected by the whole upheaval. He doesn’t give two shits about the new dog, any more than he does the other two. All he wants is to be left alone, and he’ll just walk around anything that gets in his way. Apparently he learned long ago it’s the only way that really works. Too bad he can’t teach Angel.