SWEETIEPIE ALERT!!!

I'm not sure that SmartieBean could get any cuter if he tried...........

Just a little over eight weeks now since he came to stay with us. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that we still have him but we suspect that his heart murmur is what is making people shy. Little do they know, our Miss Remy had the same grade of heart murmur as Smartie and she lived to be sixteen.

Well until the right person finds our sweet boy, it just means we have longer to enjoy his lovely little self.

TRUE AFFIRMATION

We received the loveliest email from "M" the other day who adopted our Quincy (now known as Oscar) about a year ago. She was writing to share that she and our little buddy had moved out to New Brunswick and that he's doing well.

I'm not sure if it was what she wrote, how she wrote it, or what I saw that made me well up with tears; truth be told maybe it was a little bit of all three. Although we continue to foster and help to save lives, I've also become quite involved in another side of the rescue, the side where people decide to return cats/kittens adopted out by us and amongst the legitimate reasons that come along (and there are truly some), you also listen to and read stories that have people demanding you take the cat back after 3, 5, or 10 years of that kitty being apart of their life for alot of ugly reasons. New partner (who doesn't like cats), new baby (and our child has to come first now), new job (I won't have the hours to dedicate to an animal), and my personal favourite, I'm moving (and Cuddles cannot come). In dealing with situations and excuses like these, you can start to become abit despondent, and frustrated, and sad, that there are so many who discard their pets like they would a worn pair of sneakers or a piece of furniture.

And then along comes people like "M" who clearly loves Oscar and considers him a true friend - read and see for yourself:

I thought you might like a little update on Oscar. It has been one year since I adopted Oscar and I couldn't be happier with that decision. He is such a good companion. He has endured a lot of change in the past year with his sweet, playful, and cuddly nature intact.


In January we moved to New Brunswick. We drove over a period of three days and I was quit concerned about how he was going to handle such a big change. I did a lot of research about how best to make the move with the least amount of trauma for him. In the end I decided to try a lavender and chamomile scented collar and travel during the day, when he usually sleeps. He did so much better than I could have hoped for. He slept in his crate with minimal fuss while on the road and even made himself at home in the hotel rooms.


He seems to love it here in NB. He has a great time watching the birds, deer, ground hogs, and other animals that he can see from the windows. He continues to purr seemingly endlessly and has become a very pushy lap cat.

I give great thanks to my Heavenly Father that he continues to aide us in this work by bringing lovely people like "M" and kitties like Oscar, together.

CHEEKY MONKEY

Several weeks later and this is Smartie. Soooooo sweet and his favourite thing of all is hopping up into our laps for quality loving. He's still nervous about some things (ie: terrified of plastic bags), but he's so much better than when he first arrived. He's also starting to stay quiet all night long, for a while there he would cry in the night pretty much every night of the week - moving here was very hard on him.

So when he's not being cute and lovey, he likes to chase Silly around the house for horseplay. You can imagine how well that goes over..............Rocky he just tries to avoid like the plague! *L* He's has alot of kitten like qualities still which is just too cute and makes him all that more endearing.

We're hopeful that his forever family is right around the next corner.

PICTURE PERFECT

Smartie is making loads of progress now that he's been here almost a month. I could go on and on about all the hurdles he's cleared but I think I'll let these next few pictures do the talking. Suffice it to say that undernearth that terrified little face and exterior, lies a very adorable, sweet and oh so loving young boy.

He's officially up for adoption now - so fingers crossed that the right family finds him.

KITTENTUDE

I start by apologizing to all you Shakespeare lovers out there.............we've decided to rename Malvolio. It just wasn't flowing off our tongues and more importantly, after 2 1/1 weeks of using it continually, he doesn't appear to know it even slightly. This seems to happen alot we find and we're often left wondering if these same owners ever even used the names they give to their pets? My two boys know their names (and their nicknames even), at the drop of a hat so we're always baffled when rescues come to us who act nameless. That said, we've decided to call him SMARTIE - because whether he's nervous or inquisitive, his eyes become the size of smarties! :))

We also reintroduced Smartie to the entire lodgings here at Safe Haven late last week and in just afew short days, he's doing much, much better. He's still incredibly nervous with sudden movements and certain objects (a real fear of plastic bags is apparent), but he spends more time out now than hiding, and will come running when the food dish is being filled (typical male - always hungry) :)). He is also still easily spooked when being petted but that too is showing signs of improvement, and we've even heard him purring albeit ever so slightly afew times now while having his chin scratched.

The biggest part of this update is that he is REALLY enjoying the company of our boys, loves to play hide n' seek, and has alot of kitten like antics that are just too adorable to watch unfolding. We will absolutely want him to go to a home with another young cat like himself because we suspect that as he's had the boys to observe and has sensed their feelings of safety; it has helped his own. Our boys are too old for all his desires to play but at least it's wonderful to see him engaged and oh did I neglect to mention how chatty he is! - a real talker.

His forever home will need an experienced owner and lots of patience, but we see the light on the horizon and once again it looks beautiful.

SMALL WINS

It's been up and down with Malvolio. The up is that he has a fantastic appetite and perfect litterbox habits, to many those might seem like not such a big deal and to be expected; but when your dealing with as many other issues as we're uncovering with this little guy............those have us very grateful!

It has taken us 11 days to get to point you see above. That's Malvolio content to sleep in the cat bed ON TOP of the fuzzy housecoat instead of using it to bury himself underneath of it to hide. This past weekend we tried giving him access to the rest of the house and our boys. Surprisingly, he didn't do too badly with the latter, but he found his way to the basement on Friday night and stayed in the same spot until Sunday morning - not moving, not coming out to eat or drink, having buried himself in the smallest corner he could find behind a tonne of stuff where we had to take a flashlight to find him. So we got him out of there and back up to his guestroom, where now instead of hiding, hissing, and growling every time we enter the room or he hears a noise, he's now enjoying the comforts of the cat bed and will do so in front of us.

He startles easily, is very freaked out by sudden hand movements, and petting him is an art form because you have to wait until his pupils are not the size of saucers (meaning he's not as stressed), and even then you can start only to find that within three seconds he's terrified all over again.

So here we are celebrating the small stuff and hoping that the big stuff will come.

4 DAYS & PROGRESS

Today marks almost 4 full days since Malvolio came to stay and we're delighted to report that we can now pet him! He's still extremely shy and uneasy, but he does rub against us now and has allowed us to pet his head and I even got an underneath the chin scratch in which he seemed to enjoy.

He startles easily and has taken to laying on one of the end tables in his room behind a big plate I have there - he's party hidden so again I think it makes him feel safer. It can't be comfortable but he seems to like it and it's all about whatever helps him to feel secure in his surroundings. His pupils still become dilated and huge very quickly, so we're being very respectful of his need for slow right now and not pushing the envelope with him at all.

There's a sweet boy in there - it will just take abit of extra time for him to settle in and trust. After all that's happened to him, how can anyone blame for him?