YVONNE

Well, what a surprise!

We seem to have adopted a cat.

The story goes that an email arrived in my inbox from the organiser of the walking club of which we are both members.  Yvonne belonged to a man who lived in a nearby village.  He's a musician and had asked the club treasurer if she could look after his cat for a couple of weeks while he went on tour.  He never came back and two months later the lady established that he had moved out of his house and was now living in Greece.  Yvonne had been abandoned.  The lady wasn't able to keep her indefinitely so an email was sent out asking if anyone knew anyone who might be able to adopt her.

 

We went to see Yvonne and she seemed very friendly and confident, not at all afraid of us.  She had been kept indoors but walked outside on a lead for the two months of her stay.  We had been thinking along the lines of adopting a mature cat anyway so we decided to take her.

She's affectionate, domesticated and quite feisty.  She uses a litter tray (we're very relieved about that), is clean and not at all perturbed by all the usual household activities and noises.  The only problem is.............Hugo!  She is very frightened of him.

Yvonne is nine years old and came with some paperwork that showed she was well cared for in her early years but had some kind of accident when she was eighteen months old.  She had a fractured jaw and it's assumed that this might have been the result of being hit by a car.  Her reaction to Hugo was so strong that we wonder if she had been attacked or chased by a dog.  I suppose we will never know.

If they are in the same room she hisses and growls at him then runs to hide somewhere upstairs.  He has already learned to give her a wide berth and we're hoping that eventually she will see him as less of a threat.  It's early days.  For now she's happy to explore every corner of the house, just peeping into the living room where he has his bed to check where he is.  I can't see them ever being the great friends that he and Daisy were but as long as world war three doesn't break out if they accidentally meet we'd be happy.  We're keeping her indoors for a while just in case she thinks running away is a good idea.  I would hate to be responsible for the uncertain outcome of something like that.

We have an appointment with the vet on Monday so that she can get her annual vaccinations and a check up.  We will ask the vet's advice on having her sterilised.  There are no other cats near to us but you never know!