Poor Paddy, I had to pick up a stainless steel cat bowl we’d ordered (for our thrift-store cat feeder, details will follow) and a prescription for Lindsy and I brought him with me to our vet’s and a local pet shop. Not a single person acknowledged his existence no matter how much he looked at them hopefully. He even tried to sit politely (major self control for him) but it’s like he doesn’t exist, or worse, they literally run the other way. He finally got his wish when the tech who brought the second prescription said hi to him and gave him a pat. Paddy was over the moon.

Cricket, who wants nothing to do with strangers and makes herself as small as possible (not hard when you’re only 5  pounds to begin with) always attracts a crowd of people wanting to pet her. Personally, I’m with Cricket — social interaction is not my strong point. But we’re trying to make sure Paddy grows up well socialized and it’s hard when he’s carrying the ‘Pit Bull’ stigma, that’s one of the reasons we didn’t really want another one (another reason is the rampant health issues that plague purebred dogs, a few of which he suffers from) and had hoped he was the mix he appeared to be when we adopted him.

If my job schedule would actually let up on the 12-14 hour days, I’d like to enroll him in a class. He loves people so much he gets really excited, so we need to get him around more social situations so we can work on his training. He’s really good at home with the commands he knows but needs to have more exposure to distractions. We had a bit of a setback with what I call ‘parkarrhea’ (excitement-induced diarrhea) that’s kept us from taking him many places lately but he seems to be getting better with that. Maybe next week he can go visit his friends at Wag! – there’s an Orbee soccer ball there we know he’d love.

Paddy would like me to add that he is happy to report Joy’s training is going better. He finally managed to weasel his way onto her lap, after months of working on her…

Then again, he probably doesn’t need any more encouragement in his belief that Cricket is a chew toy.

Anyway, here are a few highlights and the full album can be found in the gallery. There’s even a few rare pics of the critterweb humans.

Simon appreciating the chilly day from the comfort of a lap.

The mini roses all survived the winter and are getting leaves already.

Cricket also subscribes to the ’sunbathing is better on a lap’ ideal.

Last year’s parsley, still going strong.

Unbeknown to her, the huntress (Winter is on far right of pic) is also the hunted.

A photo op goes awry.

Lindsy, Chris, Simon, and Paddy

When I was taking this, I wondered if Joy was having a creepy sensation of being spied on?

Calvin had a great time outside.

There are  21 more pictures in the full album.

Today it’s dark and rainy, and there’s rumor of snow on Tuesday, but winter has lost it’s grip on us, I hope.

Pepper, parsley, basil and oregano seedlings (the big bushy stuff is a batch of store bought cilantro I was keeping in water until I could get the dehydrator out)

As I mentioned in the first post, we were a little hesitant to be optimistic about a new addition to the family, with as bad as things went with Arthur… and adding a cat was particularly dicey, given the aggression issues we’ve had with Olive, and between Olive and Winter. We’d hoped the right one would kind of balance things out, but it could just as easily have been a total disaster.

I’m happy to say that things have gone better than we could ever have hoped. By the end of the first week, we had him intermingled with the rest of the gang. The only problem we did have was him giving his upper respiratory infection to Winter, but that may have helped the transition in a way, funny as that sounds; she was feeling too bad those first few days to worry about being hostile to the ‘intruder’ in the house.

Now, over a month later, Winter treats him like a little brother – sometimes she finds him amusing and she actually plays with him, other times he’s too much for her and she gets angry. He does pay attention when she gets mad and backs off. Simon also gets along well with him — we were worried he was being too rough with Simon but Simon seems to initiate the wresting at least as often as Dandelyon does. They sleep together and Simon even grooms him sometimes.  Olive… well, Olive is Olive. She is OK most of the time but we have had some issues with her jumping on him when she’s having one of her off days. Still, overall things have gone well.

Cricket was initially kind of snarky with him (in her defense, he does treat her as a chew toy) but she’s gotten over that and he’s showing a bit more restraint with the flying tackles. Lindsy snapped at him a few times, but she hates all of the cats and we didn’t really expect she’d be any different with a new one.The unfortunate thing is we now have two cats that love dogs, and no dog that likes cats, but we’re still hoping to find the right dog to add to the family some day — though ideally not until after Lindsy’s passed on.

One thing I do need to explain is that Dandelyon is now his middle name, and we’ve been calling him “Calvin.” It just suits him more, most of the time. His full name is “Calvin Dandelyon Weasley.” Yes, not only have we confused things by spelling one name weird, but now we’ve given him a name from “Calvin and Hobbes” but not named him after the cat in the cartoon. At least the Weasley part is pretty straightforward, if you’re familiar with the Harry Potter books. His personality is very Calvinish, he’s funny, inventive, mischievous, and cheerful, but can put on a good pout when he gets tired. And he has yellow hair that sticks up all over the place.

He has been so much fun to have around, he really is like a little ray of sunshine. We really love him. He makes us laugh constantly with his antics, and he’s blossoming into a beautiful cat. The five AM wake up in the form of a five pound kitten suddenly pouncing on your face we could maybe do without, but I’m sure he’ll outgrow that.

How could anyone resist a face like this?