Adventures in Cat Adoption:

So why on earth did we end up adopting a chunky, ornery, three year old cat with a lot of baggage when we could have had a playful kitten?

Because everyone wants a kitten and the plight of this cat was not his fault.

“Rumson” was abused before he ended up at this particular no-kill shelter, but he was obviously a beloved pet at some point in the past too because he craved affection.

He was desperately affectionate when given the opportunity to interact with people but then he could turn vicious in a split second and he did not get along with other animals.

This meant that his opportunities to get exercise out in the kitty common area were extremely limited, which accounted for his weight. The fact that he had slashed all of the staff on multiple occasions meant that cleaning his cage was an unpleasant ordeal for all concerned. The big yellow warning label on his cage made his adoption prospects pretty bleak.

This was a kitty without a lot of prospects who was likely to live in a box for the rest of his life.

We decided to give Rumson a chance, and I am delighted to announce that just three months after adopting our ferocious feline, he is a lovely, loving and purring member of our household.

So how did we go from ferocious to fantastic?

First, we had to identify the problems.

Our kitty had an issue with feet. He went absolutely ballistic on me when I tried to shoo him away from a door with my foot, which leads me to suspect that he was kicked as a part of his abuse before we got him.

Knowing this, we were very careful to always know where our kitty is, and step slowly and deliberately around him so that he never felt threatened.

Roslyn Bryan's theory on pet communication:

I'm a big believer than in order for any relationship to flourish, there has to be good communication between the participants. That's why I am convinced that another big problem that Rumson was fighting with is that he didn't feel “heard”.

When Rumson had enough contact with us, he wouldn't even attempt to communicate his displeasure with the usual body language of kitties. There was no hissing, growling, flattened ears or twitching tail. When he had enough, Rumson would lash out and Adam or I were usually caught completely by surprise. This lead me to suspect that he might have been in a home with a young child or someone completely clueless on cat behavior who “wouldn't take no for an answer.”

Just like with people: When a cat tries to say something and gets constantly ignored, it is going to resort to more and more extreme behavior to make its feelings clear. If you ignore a cat's “request” to be left alone too often, he will eventually stop asking nicely and start taking a swipe or a bite to ensure you get the message. If enough time passes and the human side of the equation never responds to the polite requests, that teaches the cat this form of communication just doesn't work, so he'll stop using it and just go straight to the scratching and biting.

It took a while for us to pick up Rumson's very subtle clues of displeasure. Adam and I both have the scars to prove it, but we eventually learned to watch his whiskers. He would pull them back towards his cheeks when he was getting ready to attack. When that happened we would instantly stop what we were doing and leave him to him own devices.

This eventually retrained him to understand that we wanted to be sensitive to his needs, and that he could “use his words” and other means to express herself instead of getting all physical and violent every time something displeased him.

Finally, being cooped up in a cage for so long, Rumson had tons of energy, and really need a lot of quality play-time to let it out in a constructive manner. We found a toy that he loves and run him around until he is completely exhausted a couple times a day.

He's lost a lot of the extra weight that he had, and this was great quality bonding time for us all. Now he asks nicely by bring the toy over to us and looking at us expectantly. THAT's a big step up in communication!

To sum it all up, a “special needs” cat can become a wonderful addition to your family. You just need to understand exactly what those special needs are and respond appropriately. Our beautiful Rumson needed to learn that he was in a house of people that cared for him, were not going to hurt him, and listened so that he could revert back to more gentlemanly forms of communication.

Now that we are all on the same page and part of the same pride, everything is working out just fine.

I'm Roslyn Bryan, and Adam, Rumson and I would ask that you please consider adopting an older, or special needs pet if you can, especially if you are in a house without young children. These harder to place pets might need a little more attention, but they have a lot of love to give!