Maybe I'd wait & see if one pair gets adopted, & then adopt the other pair.

Cathy

The 'hussie' sounds like my kind of cat. Doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous.
I love big fluffy cats.

'shy' Jack is beautiful too and he's well ...... shy. Some people are put
off by the shy ones so he gets a vote for being a cat not just for anyone. I
think you're able to accept cats just the way you find them and he might not
find that just anywhere. Cats with tons of personality can find homes in a
heartbeat but the shy ones might get overlooked.

But then again what do I know

W

Been meaning to ask what the cast and stitches are for? I think somewhere
you said you'd be getting the cast off yesterday. How'd it go?

W

They seem to be winning the cute vote, so I would go for the
underdogs.

-mhd

makes me kind of glad I never had to choose. Sometimes I wish I could *pick*
my cats instead of the other way around, but I've just never had to.

circa Fri, 18 Jun 2004 21:41:06 -0500, in rec.pets.cats.health+behav,
Cheryl (jlhshadow@nospamhotmail.com) said,

He**, it would make it easier on me if two of 'em were adopted
already. :-P

Laura

The only downside to taking  a pair I would forsee is that the pair might
stick together and not have much incentive to mingle with your present cats
the way you invision.

OTOH, pairs are harder to place, and with a cat-experienced person like you,
I'm sure you know how to do all the right things for a proper intergration.
I don't know which pair I would take, they both seem wonderful!  I say meet
them both.  You'll know when you meet them.

If you feel like driving past Westchester and on to New Hampshire, let me
know!  We've got some great kitties looking for homes :-)
http://www.sarl-nh.org/cats/index.htm

Don't tempt me! My husband, however, might refuse to let me in with two more
cats when I get back.

Seriously, I hope you will go meet the four cats and tell us all about how
it went. I think that is the way for you to know for sure which pair is
right.

I will say this, I don't think "looks like" has anything to do with cat
crushes. It's the "it" factor. Something indefinable. So I don't think that
will be any help to you.

Laura wrote:

This may be true, but his health wasn't compromised then. Although it
may not be apparent to you because you see him day in and day out, he
probably has slowed down some. Another thing you want to consider is the
fact that often cats will pick on other cats when they sense that they
have health issues. I would tend to err on the side of caution in that
regard.

If he hounded her, it wouldn't be because she looks like her. They don't
make that type of connection. With cats it's all about scent and
familiarity. That's why we occasionally see posts from surprised people
who thought related cats that had been separated for a time, then
brought back together, would recognize each other and pick up where they
left off, but instead chaos ensues.

Being timid around people doesn't necessarily mean he'd allow himself to
be picked on. We know that he has the ability to have a wonderful
relationship with cats and has done so. I have Sam, a siamese, who
disappears anytime someone comes to the door and will not come out until
they are gone, but with the cats he's right out there and gets along
with everyone.

Which is why I'm thinking it would be more even ground with the less
rambunctious male/female pair.

A lot of that depends on how you introduce them. I am very careful about
how I do introductions and I haven't had a failure yet.

My guess is they would piss her off. :-)

And I think that part of that may very well be because in a large cat
population, their importance in the scheme of things was diminished.
When in a new environment where they had only one (?) cat to contend
with, they may have gone into tag team mode and decided they ruled. It
might be worthwhile to get more information about the situation they
were in, the cat that they didn't get along with, and what was done as
far as an introduction.

Well, actually they have. Each other. :-) So we know that each of them
has the ability to get along with another cat.

Again, be careful about choosing a cat because it *looks* like one she
got along with. That is a set-up for disappointment.

Unfortunately, there is no way to predict how two cats are going to
bond. I admire your wanting to get Camille a new loverboy, but
realistically it's a crapshoot so the best you can do is choose a cat
with a personality that you think will complement hers and hope for the
best. Remember when we were young and our mothers would want to pick our
boyfriends for us and we usually went "ewwwwww..." ;-)

And actually meeting the cats will give you a much more accurate picture
of them and whether they are a match or not.

Megan

                                   

Awww, very sweet kitties, Preston! :)
My cats are siblings and 99% of the time they get along great.  About 1% of the
time Mickey will pick on his sister Meesha.  But she always forgives him, and
they are inseparable.

Lauren
________
See my cats:  http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm

circa Sat, 19 Jun 2004 06:51:35 -0700, in rec.pets.cats.health+behav,
Preston Crawford (me@REMOVEPSAMBLOCKprestoncrawford.com) said,

Oh, they are so CUTE!!

I really do like to bring cats in in pairs whenever possible,
although as I mentioned, I hadn't been *looking* for a pair. It just
happened that the cats that really jumped out at me were paired, and
I absolutely will not break up a pair of cats who love each other.
Plus, it really is harder to adopt out pairs, especially adult pairs,
so I would feel good about doing it. :-)

To be perfectly honest, there's a little voice in my head that keeps
telling me that I could take all four of them. It has even developed
a little plan on how to do it. I could take Jack and Natasha first,
get them acclimated, then offer to foster Liam and Beau and if they
fit in, then, well...

Then sanity steps in and reminds me that I don't want *seven* cats. I
do have the space for them, and I have had that many cats before, but
it's just too close to the "crazy lady with all the cats" thing for
comfort. <G> Besides, I like to always know that I have a cash buffer
in case something happens with the cats and they need expensive
veterinary care, and with seven cats, I'd need a larger buffer.

Basically, at this point, all I know of their personalities is what
I've been told by the owner/fosterer. Despite what may seem to be the
case from the Petfinder descriptions, the kitties' current caretakers
both describe the pairs in similar terms. All four are described as
terribly sweet and very attached to each other. Liam & Beau's
fosterer doesn't indicate that they're rambunctious, and though I'm
certainly not ruling out the possibility that they may be and that
they could end up being a pair of little bullies, their interactions
in the fosterer's household do *not* make them sound like that. In
fact, he is really baffled at the whole interaction in their defunct
adoptive home, and I just get the sneaking suspicion that their
introductions weren't done well.

With that said, Jack and Natasha's mommy really, really wants to see
them go to a great home, and from our conversations, it really sounds
as though she has decided that I could provide that. She is willing
to drive them, all of their assorted toys, trees, litterboxes, food
and *me* from Westchester to here. (I can take the train up there to
see them and if I decide to take them, I think she'd have the car
running and ready to go <G>.) She is definitely a cat lover, and like
me, the cats she has had in her lifetime have almost always been
adopted from others or taken in in some sort of "save the kitties"
situation. She desperately wants to see them go to a place where they
will be loved and where they will remain together.

So, at this point, I think I'm leaning towards Jack and Natasha
because I would be doing a good thing for them and for their current
family by putting their hearts at ease that the kitties had gone to a
loving home.

The thing is, I am just in love with Liam and Beau's little faces,
and I know that they're not much easier to adopt out than Jack and
Natasha.

Basically, if I took Liam and Beau, I would be doing it for me, and
if I took Jack and Natasha, I'd be doing it for them. It's not that
Jack and Natasha aren't gorgeous cats, it's just that Liam and Beau
are *so* gorgeous that I just WANT them.

Aargh.

I guess I'll just see what happens when I meet the kitties. I get my
cast removed and my stitches out on Monday, and I'm going to have
dinner with friends Monday night. That leaves me with a free
afternoon to meet some kitties. I'll probably see if I can meet Liam
and Beau as they're closer and it would be easier to meet them, then
go have dinner with friends. If I meet Jack and Natasha on Monday
afternoon, I'm afraid I'd end up deciding to take them on the spot,
than having their mommy schlep them and me back to the city, and I
don't want to take off to have dinner with my friends right after
bringing cats into the house. I want to get whoever comes in settled
into the introduction room and be here to keep an eye on things.

Whichever pair I end up getting, I'm ready for as far as introduction
space goes. My dining room is the perfect introduction room. It has
french doors on one side, big bay windows, and then a heavy swinging
door into the kitchen on the other side. It has a cat tree and a
couch for kitties to lounge on, and plenty of room for food, water
and litterboxes. The kitchen has two doors into it- one from the
dining room and the other from another room, which, itself, also has
two entrances. (It's currently my junk room, although I'm going to
swap the server room and the junk room after I'm off these crutches,
because the current server room is what was probably a maid's room
and is kind of separate from the rest of the apartment. I'd rather
have my junk room be off where I don't have to look at it every time
I go into the kitchen because I'm anal retentive and I hate having
miscellaneous junk in my living space.)

My existing brood will be able to go into and out of the kitchen
without seeing the new kitties and vice versa. I plan to cover the
french doors initially and then gradually let the kitties see each
other through the french doors. As time progresses, I can uncover the
french doors and let them see each other through the glass.
Eventually, I can prop open the swinging door just a little bit so
that they can sniff at each other between the kitchen and dining
room. I'll prop it in a fashion that prevents them from squeezing in
or out, just allowing them a little sniffy space. (I have latches to
facilitate this.)

Eventually, I can close off the door from the junk room that leads to
the kitchen, open the door to the kitchen, and let the new kitties
expand their territory into the kitchen.

Then I can open the door to the junk room, closing its other
entrance, and let them explore the three rooms. One of the (current)
cats' litterboxes is in a closet in that junk room, and the bathroom
off that room is the one where I clean out the litterboxes. I'd leave
the litterbox in the closet and let the new kitties sniff at it, and
maybe leave presents for the existing kitties (I'll put a fresh
litterbox in the bathroom so that if they won't go where my cats have
gone, they'll still be able to leave "presents"). <G> Then I could
close them back into the kitchen/dining room, open the "external"
entrance to the junk room and let my beasties back into that room to
sniff around at space that has been occupied by the new kitties.

Well, anyway, you get the gist. I figure that by doing things nice
and slowly, I'm more likely to have the kind of experience that Mary
L. had when she brought Duffy into her household. :-)

Now if I can just decide which kitties to bring home...

Laura
<indecisive as ever>