Well it's been a couple of weeks since our cat Miss Priss arrived on the boat so I thought I'd share a little bit about her antics to date.
After the very rude awakening of having 2 x 15 hour flights and arriving into Miami, clearing customs and being put into the back of a car where she was promptly dragged out of the crate so that we could change out the smelly, wet absorbent pad, clean the crate with wet wipes and dry off the cat as best we could in the limited space of the back of the car it was back into the crate for the 3 hour drive back to our boat. I think the cat was shell shocked as she was quiet for the first 2.5 hours only finding her voice and mildly protesting her incarceration until we reached the marina.
The bigger indignity was yet to come, she smelt so we decided that a shower was in order before we let her loose inside the boat, it was something that I hope we don't ever need to repeat as it took both of us to do the job and we are only talking a 3.5kg cat here! Gerry put out some food for her whilst I tried to dry her off as much as possible, she looked like a drowned rat and I wish I'd had the camera handy as it's a picture that will never be repeated. Priss has always been a fussy eater, as only mongrel cats will be and she turned her nose up at the food opting to just drink the water, guess the flight left her as dehydrated as it does with us, happily this sorted itself out within 24 hours.
We showed her where the litter tray was and then left her to have a snoop around her new home.
One of our concerns is that we haven't been able to get any of the same brands of either food or litter that she is used to and we were concerned that she might rebel against using the litter and not eat what we have bought. The litter hasn't been an issue at all so all good there, however we are still experimenting with different types of wet food and mostly coming up blank - we figure she'll eat it if she's hungry enough. We bought her a new bed and I had her 2 blankets from home with her smell on them so that she could feel that she was in a safe place, we have had to move the bed around until she finally decided that the current position ( on the end of the couch in the salon) was an acceptable place to sleep in. I say this very tongue in cheek as she far prefers to curl up on one of our laps or sleep between us on our bed.
For the first few days we kept her inside the cabin and let her explore, she has managed to get into every cupboard, wardrobe and shelf space with no problem and has staked out a few favourite hidey holes to disappear into. So far she hasn't ventured very far on the top side of the boat, we have encouraged her to come out into the cock pit whilst we are out there but she is very wary and tends to sit close to the companionway so that she can bolt below at the slightest provocation, its just going to take time and patience for her to be comfortable with it all.
Gerry and I took a 4 day trip to visit his stepmother in Wisconsin not long after I arrived into the States, it meant leaving the cat on the boat and relying on our sailing buddies, Dale and Lorie to feed her and check on her welfare. Obviously we were no great loss to the cat as she greeted Dale like a long lost friend each time he came to feed her - fickle things, cats!
I'd love to know what goes through her mind, if anything, as she now follows me around like a shadow - it makes going to the toilet somewhat interesting in the middle of the night!
One thing that we have found here that we also had at home is the temptation treats and Priss now thinks that every time a bag of anything gets rattled she is going to get a treat. We have had to limit how often she gets given any so that we can open packets of other stuff in relative peace.
To date it would appear that Priss is settling in well and slowly adapting to her new home. For sure I'm going to come back in the next life as a cat, as long as I am treated in the same way that ours is treated!