"We just wanted to tell you how we're getting on with our new companion for Mazzy! We've called her Neko, which is Japanese for "cat". She's absolutely gorgeous, and while the first couple of weeks were a bit stressful (to be honest) they're now getting on really well.
"You might remember, we adopted Mazzy from Chestnut at the beginning of 2007 along with her brother, Floyd (from memory they were called Peter and Clare at the time, but we soon changed that!) They were inseparable, and it was really tragic when Floyd was killed not far from our house in the Autumn.
"It took us a while to get over that, and while Mazzy's a pretty tough cookie we thought she probably missed having a playmate. But we had a lot going on over Christmas and the New Year, so we decided to wait until we had the time to devote to a new companion. We're glad we did, because we ended up with Neko!
"There's a bit of an age difference between the two. We talked with the staff at Chestnut about how such an adoption might work, and it was quite a lot of work at first. For her first week or two here we'd take it in turns to spend time with her in the evenings, and one of us works from home so she always had someone with her during the day, which is really important when they're so young.
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Settling in...
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"We were also lucky in that we were allowed to take quite a young kitten home on its own (her two sisters were adopted together), but again.. with someone here all the time, and because our existing cat was once part of a pair, and because Chestnut already knows Mazzy (the Boarding Centre is her holiday home when we go away), we thought it would be ok for both Mazzy and Neko.
"Introducing the two cats was what we might call "interesting"! We followed the advice we were given and set aside a room for the new arrival for her first couple of days. They met each other bit by bit, and always with supervision. To be honest, the first meeting wasn't a great success - much growling and hissing from both sides! We were amazed just how much the little one stood up for herself. She's totally fearless!
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| A successful introduction! |
"For the first week she basically lived in one room, and then a couple of rooms upstairs, while Mazzy got used to the idea of having another cat in the house. By slowly increasing the time they spent together, and keeping an eye on the pair of them, the growling subsided and the hissing reduced. And after a couple of weeks they were quite happy to share the same house.
"Today - about 6 weeks later - they're pretty friendly. They eat together and sometimes even sleep together, and although Mazzy does get a bit fed up of the kitten's constant attentions (she wants to playfight almost all the time) it's obvious she loves having someone to chase around the house and play "mouse" with. When Mazzy's had enough she just goes out, and for Neko there's always some human attention to be sought out then!
"We absolutely love both our Chestnut cats to bits, and we're really grateful for the help you've given us. Thankyou again, and we hope you like our story!"
We received the following email from Lorna and Steve, who adopted a young cat as a companion for Mazzy, a slightly older cat already in their home. Mazzy was also adopted from Chestnut Cat Sanctuary!