Another day with Rascal

Earlier I had mentioned that Rascal was caught in a junkyard.  No one is sure how long he lived there.  A person placed a trap to catch other cats she had seen in the junkyard since it was the beginning of December and getting cold, and after the trap was out for only one day also caught Rascal.  The former owner of Rascal also owned a motel in Columbia Falls and said Rascal lived there.  But she said that Rascal liked to roam around.

Rascal likes to lay under the bed in my bedroom.  He comes out when I go to bed so I can pet him.  I don't think he spends the night on the bed as he isn't there when I wake up.  But when Rascal hears I am awake in the morning he jumps up on the bed.  Other times of the day when I enter the bedroom and sit on the bed he will come out from under the bed so I can pet him. This afternoon when it was time for me to go and do some work, Rascal put his claws into my flannel shirt and tried to stop me from leaving him.  Some times he seems to hear something I can't hear as he looks to be hearing something, and then he will go back under the bed.

Rascal will only go out of the bedroom to eat and use the litter box.  This evening I tried to coax him out of the bedroom to join me by the woodstove in the hallway area.  He would come to the door but not out of the room.  So I picked him up.  As soon as I exited the bedroom Rascal panicked and squirmed out of my hands scratching one of my fingers.  As soon as he hit the ground he took off.  Since I had closed the bedroom door he took off to another room.  I waited and waited and called for him but he wouldn't come.  Later when I looked for him I saw him run back to my bedroom as I had now left the bedroom door open.

Patti, a friend of mine, said Rascal looks like a Norwegian Forest cat. 

"He is a more little like a “normal” long hair around the face, but the cat sites on the internet say that one way to distinguish the Norwegian Forest cat from other long hairs is that they have a mane."

I looked at photos of Norwegian Forest cats, and Rascal does look like one.   Especially when he sits.  His fur around his neck looks like a mane.   This afternoon I tried to trim some of his mane as earlier I had seen the long neck hair got in the way of some of his grooming.  I was able to only trim a little of his fur as he is almost constantly in motion.

So we are working at increasing our bond together.  Hopefully it won't take much longer for him to relax and go about the entire house.

New cat. Rascal

I feel a little guilty.  I somewhat feel like a person whose long term spouse had died and within weeks they get remarried to someone else. Not a good image.  I miss my Daisy.  I also miss having a cat.  

The weekly newspaper had photos of cats for adoption from the county animal shelter, Humane Society, and the Flathead Spay and Neuter Task Force.  The Spay and Neuter Task Force had a photo of a white and black cat for adoption.  My friend Donna and I went to look at the cat.  He seemed nice.  But he was a long haired cat.  I never had a long hair cat.  For some reason - too many cat food commercials? - I had the idea a long haired cat was an indoor cat and needed extra attention and pampering.

I looked around at the other organizations in the Valley. The humane society had a back and white cat but I had to wait a few days to be able to look at the cat as viewing was only by appointment due to COVID restrictions.   When I called later I was told this cat also had a sister and both needed to be adopted together.  A later photo showed the cat to be more black with white, and I wanted a white cat with black, more like Daisy.  And I wanted only one cat.

I checked around western Montana.  Other organizations had a few white with black cats.  Or that was what the photo showed.  I called and tried to get more photos as the distances were 70 and 100 miles away.  I never did get any more photos.

So I defaulted back to the Spay and Neuter Task Force cat. This cat, and two other cats, had been rescued from a junkyard in Columbia Falls.  The cat has a microchip and they found who the owner was.  The owner agreed the cat could be adopted.  The cat had a habit of roaming and disappearing from its previous home.   I talked to the owner about the cat.  The cat is named: Rascal.

A few days ago I adopted Rascal.   For now I think I will keep that name.  He is a male cat and is 5 years old.

The first day Rascal just wanted to sit in the corner of the living room.  When I came back in the house later Rascal was missing.  I looked and looked all over the house before I found him in the basement.  Then he ran upstairs and hid.  Later in the evening I found him the basement as I hadn't closed the door.  I let him be.  I figured he would come out later to eat or explore.

The next morning I couldn't find him. I used a flashlight and looked everywhere. After the third time I looked for him in the afternoon he came down to me in the basement.   This time I closed the basement door after we left the basement.

I was able to pet him.   When I took a break and cleaned the ashes from the woodstove Rascal went to my bedroom.  Later I couldn't find him.  Eventually I found him under my bed.  He found a spot to lay there in between the stuff stored there.  And he stayed there the rest of the day.

Last night he was under the bed when I went to bed.  He came out and joined me on top of the bed.  Since I was falling asleep and not petting him he left the bed.  This morning after I woke up he came back on to the bed.  I was able to pet him and he liked it.   He mainly stayed in the bedroom and under the bed today.  When I came into the bedroom he would come out and I was able to pet him.

So Rascal is taking his time getting used to his new home.  I wonder if he prefers under the bed, or that part of the basement, as those were about the only areas Daisy didn't go.

Petting Rascal is different than petting Daisy.  Rascal keeps moving over and over and around and around as I pet him.  He doesn't sit still.  He also prefers his head to be rubbed by me, also prefers to rub his head against my hands and arm.

So I am getting used to my new cat.  He seems nice. I haven't updated his microchip to me as the owner.  I am waiting to see if he will adjust to living out here, and me to him. If not I can take him back.  I won't let him outside for a number of weeks so he can get set in his ways that this is his home.

Today I was finally able to get a few photos of Rascal.