Bodhi was born to a feral mom, and I'm making his birthday October 2, 2011. He was fed by a woman near 54th & Kerr until Maria brought him in for neutering. He's very tame but shy. If I stroke his cheeks and scratch his neck he starts purring; if I keep talking to him and stroking gently, he'll roll over and expose his belly for rubbing. If he gets over-stimulated, or irritated by what I'm doing, he gently mouths my hand with his teeth, or clutches with his front paws, claws retracted. This strikes me as amazing for a cat born in the wild - where did he learn to be so gentle? It's like someone trained him. I suppose it's possible his siblings were smaller and he learned they'd only play with him if he was extra gentle. If I interact with him long enough, while sitting or kneeling on the floor, he'll put his front paws on my lap. I lifted him off the floor a bit once and held him for less than a minute, but he didn't seem to be very comfortable with that. Lots to learn about this little boy....
He's shown no sign of having a voice yet, but that may be because he's still nervous about where he is. Georgy wails and bellows regularly, so he may consider it prudent to not announce his presence to the scary banshee he hears! Today I'm going to leave the bathroom door open a crack to acclimatize him further to the rest of the apartment. So far when I open that door for longer than a second, he looks very alarmed - "big scary world out there!" I want to get some good photos of him - he's an extraordinarily gorgeous brown tabby with lots of white on him - and I can't do that with the bathroom lighting. It also doesn't help that his safety zone is behind the toilet, so he stays beside it most of the time. If I take a shot of him, it includes the toilet which doesn't do much for composition.
No comments:
Post a Comment