I am sad today ...

It looks as if we are going to have to re-home Afia.

We've been implementing the separation technique and everything had settled down, but Fi clearly doesn't like staying in the new half of the house and yesterday she escaped into the old part. The first thing she did was chase Amber and they had a huge fight. Neither of them was hurt, thank heavens, but Amber did refuse to come out from under the sofa for an hour.

They seem to simply be incompatible at a fundamental level :(.

I love Fi, she's a beautiful lovely cat, but Amber was here first and Fi keeps terrorising her.

Amber is not a boisterous cat, Fi is very boisterous and they just don't seem to speak the same language.

I wish there was another way, but I can't see it. I think the separation technique might work for cats that aren't so completely at opposite ends of the spectrum, but not for our two. I am very sad, but I don't think it's fair on either of them to keep this up. :(

Fi-Fi's new collar :)

Doesn't Fi look smart in her new purple and silver sparkly collar? We thought it looks nice and it has a bell so will give Amber more of a heads up that she's around when they are back in the same part of the house :). As you can see Fi also likes playing with the part of the toy the human is supposed to hold ::g::.

Is this my good side?

I shall subdue it carefully.

Now it is mine!

I will turn over and show it who's boss!

Maybe this end is easier...

We still have the kitty gates up and everything seems to be going well. Both cats are very relaxed.

We've just had the fence redone in the garden, so they were not pleased for a while that they couldn't go out. I think it may have been cursed. Monday they were supposed to arrive, but one of the guys had to go to hospital. Tuesday they did turn up and then one of the chaps injured himself and had to go to A&E to have it fixed. Finally on Tuesday afternoon the work was started.

It now looks very lovely and the kitties are glad to be back in the garden.

I have now started the process of moving their food bowls closer to the divider between the parts of the house so they start to associate the smell of each other with good things.

Kittie update - yay! the technique is working so far :)

Separating the kitties seems to be working so far. After only two days Amber is back downstairs (eating as well as looking around) and going into the garden (when it is her turn to have access) - which for Amber is amazing. This is the cat who barely came out from under the table for weeks when she first moved in.

Afia also seems to be adjusting and is far more relaxed too. She seems to like lying on the table and having her belly stroked :).

Here are some piccies of Amber we took last night while she was relaxing on the sofa.

You can tell Rob took this one and I took the others because this one looks vaguely artistic ;)

Kittygate! Dun. dun, dun...

Our kitties have not been getting on for the last few weeks and we've tried everything we can think of so we've had to go with drastic measures.

Now our house has a new half and an old half. Basically we extended on the side for almost the same size as we already had a few years back and gave ourselves a ginourmous kitchen and open plan dining room, a new spare room and a new bathroom. The two halves of the house are joined by an archway and usually we just have a curtain across it in the winter and nothing else.

However, now we need to separate the two kitties. According to the internet if two cats are fighting then it is best to separate them completely until they have calmed down and allow them to hear and smell each other, but not see, and then carefully reintroduce them to each other when all is well with the world again. Hence

KITTYGATE!!!!

dun dun dun

And yes I believe it deserves the capital letters because it's been so stressful trying to keep the kitties apart and stop one chasing the other that we installed the solution at midnight last night after Rob got back from Germany (we didn't get to bed until 1am).

Please ignore the mess, I'm was in the middle of cleaning when I decided to take a break and take the piccie :)

So this is actually two child gates stacked on top of each other. The bottom one is blocked off with card from the box it came in so the kitties can't just hiss and growl at each other.

It means I have to leave the back door open for Afia to go in and out some of the time and the catflap for Amber the other half, but I can deal with that. Afia has the new half of the house and Amber has the old for now.

Amber seems more relaxed already without having had to deal with Afia all night. She had taken to hiding under the sofa or under the throw on the big sofa when she slept. Yesterday I had to go find her to give her her morning treat and this morning she greeted me at the top of the stairs, meowing loudly :).

Afia is not happy she can't just roam the whole house, but even she seems more relaxed this morning and she has two cat trees and a myriad of toys to keep her happy. She's also going to be really pleased when I head back in there to finish cleaning because then she'll have mummy for a few hours :).

It's going to be a pain for a while, but I want my kitties to be happy and relaxed and neither of them have been for several weeks. We've no idea what happened, one day they were sniffing each other and playing together and almost friends and then suddenly they seemed to hate each other, or rather Amber seemed afraid of Afia and Afia decided to use this to take over the whole house. There was lots of growling and hiding under the sofa on Amber's part and chasing and not much else on Afia's.

Amber hasn't been downstairs for more than a minute or so for over a week now. Hopefully she'll start coming down again now.

There is no getting away from the fact that Amber is a little highly strung and she takes ages to adjust to anything new. Clearly something happened between them and she has not adjusted, so hopefully this way will give them more time. I'm going to start moving both their food bowls towards the gate over the next few days so they will end up eating in proximity to each other and get used to non-hostile relations.

So far Afia has not tried to fly so we haven't had to block up the top of the arch, but I'm not discounting the possibility of the great escape at some point. We have a plan if that happens!

Both of their previous mums are visiting today, so hopefully they will find much more happy, relaxed cats when they arrive. Let's hope we get back to more of this

and less stress. I have been at my wits end for days, so I am looking forward to some peace too :).

Right, now back to cleaning.

Have any of you had trouble with pets?

Afia playing and trying out the radiator bed

Yes, it's time for more kitty piccies :D.

While Amber was lounging in the sun in the garden Rob and I were playing with Afia in the old dining room (sorry for the state of the carpet - it's the main thoroughfare of the house). We also set up a radiator bed for her when she first arrived that she has never looked twice at until today. Below is the pictorial evidence of the adventure.

And I'm supposed to do what with that precisely?

Does it move?

Such a top predator!

It's there - I can see it...

Moarrrr

Mine now.

Don't move, you're surrounded!

I'm gonna eat you little bit of plastic...

Perfect view of the cat flap.

Can I reach the sideboard from here in a single bound?

Is that a spider?

Cats are such regal animals ;)

I so post things other than pictures of my cats, I promise, it's just with a new kitty in the house the camera is out a lot at the moment :)

Fi-fi loves having her tummy tickled :) There would have been more piccies, but Rob's camera ran out of charge.

Of course Amber would never stoop so low (or at least not when there is a camera around :)). She is always a princess!

New Piccies of Amber and Afia

Well all is going well so far. Afia spent yesterday evening hiding under things, but then explored most of the house in the early hours and is now happily sitting on top of the kitchen units :). We've given her a bed up there until we have the large cat tree delivered so she has somewhere proper to sleep. She likes high up.

They are currently ignoring each other mostly - well Afia is ignoring Amber, Amber just hasn't looked up yet and can't figure out where the other cat has gone ::g::. Amber knows she's here somewhere, but doesn't seem overly bothered that she can't figure out where.

They also chose to eat each other's food this morning :)

On to the piccies!

Afia

Going to sleep on the unit

That Amber is loud isn't she!

Been up all night exploring, shall sleep now.

This bed, it is good.

Amber

Making sure I still belong to her

Paying close attention :D

Love me please!

What do you think you're doing?

New Kitty - Afia or Fi-Fi for short

So today we picked up a new kitty as a friend for Amber. Her name is Afia, or Fi-Fi for short, and she is lovely natured and beautiful and also an ex-breeding queen. She's much more laid back than Amber so we hope they will get along.

This is a piccie of her at her old home with a lovely lady called Karen.

Copyright Spottydreams.co.uk

We met her son today as well and all of Karen's other kitties and they are all gorgeous.

When we brought her in and opened the cat basket there was a little hissing, but Amber doesn't seem overly bothered, which is good. Fi-Fi is a little more timid, but then she is coming into another cat's territory.

Currently I am upstairs with Amber sitting behind me on my PC chair and Fi-Fi is downstairs, hopefully exploring with Rob keeping an eye on her.

She's a climber so we're going to buy a humongous cat tree to put in the corner of our kitchen, or else I foresee a kitty sitting on top of the units :).

Will post piccies of her (and hopefully Amber together :)) when she's through the hiding phase.