This week's sporkful: Notes on the clowder

Thursday, July 30, 2026

Notes on the clowder

In February we lost Mavis.

I generally say that we should not go looking for cats, because they find us, but Mavis was an exception.

We'd had just one cat, who came to us shortly after the last of our starter group of five cats died. Over the course of Max's life, we had also gotten a dog who needed to be separated from the cat, but she was older and giving her two rooms that Jack couldn't go in worked.

Max's death in 2013 left a hole. No cats found us for a few months so Maria gave up and we located a cat with a magnificent tail and a certain aloofness, where if she only had two rooms and was not getting constant attention, she would be okay with that. THEN the other cats started finding us.

Her death left us with only five. There were people who were so judgmental when we had "only" four that we did not tell when two more came to us is 2022. This announcement may be controversial, but now we have seven.

It's only 2 1/3 cats per person.

Maybe it's because it was Mavis specifically whom we lost, but Maria couldn't handle it again.

She found a beautiful cat, Princess, at a sanctuary in Sherwood.

We went for a visit. Princess was lovely and sweet, as many cats there were, but there was also one really shy Siamese and one kind of hostile Siamese. Plus, another household was interested in Princess.

Well, maybe we should let them adopt Princess and take these other two.

We were going to come back in a month so I could get finished with school. (Another area where there were some twists.)

First of all, the one family never came back for Princess. We were praying for her to find a home every night, because we didn't want her to not have a home just because there seemed to be other cats that needed us more.

Princess has stunning eyes and is very friendly... she seemed very adoptable, especially compared to the one you had to pull out from under a couch to pet or the one that would hit you when you tried to pet.

Then, the shy one made a friend. Could we take three and go to eight? But the friend had a special diet, and if the shy one was opening up, maybe a little more time would give him more options.

The next thought was that we could take the standoffish one, give her a month to adjust, and if that worked out we would return for Princess.

Who were we fooling?

We brought them both home together, but it's been a journey.

This turned out to be good. Princess had someone to hide with for her first couple of days. Then her greater desire to socialize and eat helped give a bridge to Toyota.

Funny thing about that; Toyota is not actually standoffish. She is possibly shy, but she has really wanted attention. Unfortunately, she needs to rub against everything else just out of reach until you can maybe get close enough to pet her.

One of the easiest times to pet her now is when she is eating, which is when we were first able to pet Max, Mavis's predecessor.

Princess may be a little less helpful here, because she is in the mode where she is so ecstatic to be the center of attention that she will rush in when we are trying to pet other cats, including the one who needs a long flirting period before you can touch her.

Mavis would sometimes hit other cats to keep them in line (like the queen she was). We thought maybe we needed that kind of energy and Toyota would bring it.

Princess has hit Toyota a couple of times now, and Francis yesterday, just to make sure all the petting goes to her.