About a month or two ago I started noticing a little cat hanging around my yard. My cat Orlando is very alpha; he fights the males and befriends the females, so it is not unusual seeing other cats around. But this one was so skinny, I figured she must be a stray. I began to set out dishes of food when I saw her. The Saturday before Martin Luther King Day she walked in. I stood her up and verified no cojones. Because Orlando does not befriend males, I figured it was safe to assume she was female. She and Orlando sat in a room looking at each other. Later my other two cats came inside. The new kitty and Rudy gave each other a token hiss, but Orlando is head of the family and if he said the new kitty was OK then Rudy and Margot had to agree. I named the new cat Audrey because she looked like such a waif and I always thought Audrey Hepburn was “waif-ish”. That evening I watched the Blazers beat the Wizards on TV and checked on the cats during time-outs. All four were in my room. Audrey was on the bed, Orlando on the cat perch, Rudy on the rug, and Margot on the dresser, just hanging out in apparent amity. Audrey was supposed to go to the vet that Wednesday to be examined and set up an appointment to be spayed. She seemed young, but mature enough to be pregnant so I wanted to do this right away. Unfortunately, she seemed to have some litter box “issues”. I was letting her out to “go”. On Wednesday morning she left early and had not returned when I went to work, but I thought she’d either figure out the cat door and be inside in the afternoon, or be in the yard hungry. But when I got home she was not anywhere to be found. I had to cancel her appointment. I thought something terrible must have happened to Audrey. But after a week and a half she returned. I kept her inside this time, and yesterday she went to the vet. She seemed healthy enough, but I worried that her appetite was not good and she spent most of her time lying around, not playing. She also threw up once. Could she be pregnant? Things are not always what they seem. I thought she was small, but even underweight, she weighed in at 8 lb. 2 oz. Since Orlando is nearly 18 lbs (not obese, just big), by comparison every other cat looks small; at normal weight she’d be a 9-lb cat. I thought she was young, but the vet said she is a mature cat, based on examination of her eyes and teeth, probably around 7. That explains why she was not playing; she’s past the age of high energy. But the big shock was when we wondered if Audrey might have been spayed already. The vet lifted her tail, preparing to clip fur to see if she had a surgical scar. Audrey is not Audrey. Audrey is a boy. A neutered male. Clearly this cat had been someone’s pet. The vet said with foreclosures he’s seeing a lot more abandoned animals, something I can’t fathom. The cat badly needs dental work, which could explain the low appetite if it hurts to chew. The dental appointment has been scheduled. The other cats all have literary or artistic names – Orlando from As You Like It, Margot (Fonteyn) and Rudy (Nureyev) for their balletic leaps, turns and spins. I could not think of any artistic name for this cat. Various male names ran through my head and the one that stuck is Brandon. So my new kitty is Brandon. I thought it would be so symmetrical to have two gray males and two Siamese females. And since Rudy and Margot had a third sibling who escaped, I thought the “young” kitty might be a descendent and hence a cousin. Now I have 3 males and poor Margot, and a middle aged kitty! Beware of appearances! They can be deceiving. At any rate, the cat is definitely not pregnant.
This will sound ignorant since I'm not a cat person, I'm sure: Doesn't bringing in new cats to the "pack/herd/group" bring an element of danger of fighting later on? Or once Orlando, in this case, initially approved, it was all good after that? Pure curiosity on my part.
Yes, as a rule, cats are territorial, solitary animals and don't make friends with other cats. My situation is a bit odd. Rudy and Margot were taken in as very young kittens and Orlando, their biological uncle, became their "mom". For whatever reason, since he normally does not make friends with other male cats, he accepted Audrey/Brandon. And so his kittens followed. Would that human children were so obedient! All my cats are spayed/neutered at an early age. Rudy and Margot's mother, Orlando's sister, was too wild to bring in but at least she got spayed; sometimes the only thing you can do is stop the reproduction.
