Introducing Ripley

Sometimes your head and your heart don’t communicate…

So, in my efforts to Simplify All The Things, I may have had a misstep.

Just a small one, really.

Or, should I say, just a really small one.

And her name is Ripley:

Yeah. So, we adopted a kitten.

She’s teeny: 1 pound 8 ounces at her first vet appointment last Friday. This Saturday, tomorrow, she’ll be 9 weeks old.

Here’s what we know about Ripley so far: She’s the cutest little kitty ever. The toes on her right feet alternate black and white. Violet loves watching her antics, and she has a LOT of antics.

She’s also a bit of a scaredy cat. Every new thing, she gives a little hiss, then hides. She hissed when I sneezed even! Which means it’s taking her a bit longer to integrate with Cooper because, well, she’s pretty scared of him. He LOVES HER to pieces already and just wants to skitter–his favorite sport–but she’s not ready.

Of course, as y’all know, the great equalizer worked wonders for their relationship already:

Squeeze cheese for the win!

As for Newt, the two haven’t met yet. We took her to the vet as soon as she came home, and her doctor said to keep her separate from Newt for at least a week. For one thing, she definitely has roundworms, and for another, the vet said sometimes kitties have contagious respiratory illnesses that we need to give some time just to be sure. So far, she seems A-OK. In the meantime, I’ve been reading up on introducing cats (it’s WAY more complicated than introducing dogs) and chatting with cat experts to get tips on integrating the two of them.

Honestly, I think Ripley will do better with Newt than she’s doing with Coop.

We have started feeding them in sight of each other, and neither one has reacted negatively. In the pic below, Ripley is on the other side of the gate with John eating her dinner, while I sit with Newt as she eats hers. There’s a big print the same size as the gate that we have ready to slide in front of the gate in case of a negative reaction, but we haven’t needed it so far!

The only thing is that Newt knows Ripley is in the upstairs bathroom, of course, and we’ve been letting Ripley into our offices at various points, so Newt has basically stopped coming upstairs unless it’s a feeding exercise like the one above. I know cats are territorial, so I’m not sure if Newt’s saying… OK, kitten, you stay up there and I’ll be down here… or if she’s just nervous. I’m not really sure, so it remains to be seen.

Lastly, the kitten came home last weekend, went to the vet, we got our quarantine orders, and meanwhile–literally the day before–Violet came down with a stomach virus. Not only that, but she’s cutting at least one and maybe two teeth. She was a miserable mess.

Then we threw in the kitten with her quarantine and four-times-a-day feeding routine.

Along with keeping Coop and Newt happy.

And then Monday morning I left for a business trip to Purina’s HQ in St. Louis, leaving John with the whole big mess. 🙂 He did fine, though he’s a bit ragged today!

I’ll share more about the Purina trip later, but for now, they did give us a great big dog bowl that seems to be the perfect size for a tiny little kitten.

Welcome to the family, Ripley!

P.S. Can anyone guess the derivation of Ripley’s name?? The only hint: John named her! Leave a comment with your guess!