"You should come with a mute button" -- Jules to Grapefruit
"You should come with a mute button" -- Jules to Grapefruit
Before Jules and I went to England in March of 99, we'd bounced around the idea of getting another kitty. Paradox was fine to play with and be amused by, but I'd wanted to try to own and take care of one myself, plus we thought it may round out the household. There were some occasions where Paradox seemed as if he may enjoy someone to share our home with.
Upon returning, we decided to give it a go. The Ann Arbor Cat Clinic has a small holding of sheltered animals, mostly strays. We popped in to look in early April. Now, the clinic had this wacky notion of naming all the strays after food products, and thus there was Grapefruit (and while the orange coloration was good, overall I think they should have went with Dorito.) Grapefruit was a pretty good fit into what we were looking for -- a female (so as not to have two competitive males in our home), somewhat young (again, dominance issues), but best of all, she's a great looking cat. We played with her a bit at the clinic and went home. In the car, Jules and I both laughed as we both knew Grapefruit was what we wanted.
A week later, after the necessary shots and such, we picked her up. She was very scrawny -- about 7 pounds -- and her belly was still shaved from being fixed. We decided to keep Grapefruit segregated in the spare room until we could give her and Paradox time to acclimate. Suffice it to say they were both spooked by each other's presence, but after about 3 weeks, we found we could safely let them coexist at night or while we were at work during the day. In the beginning, things were rocky. Paradox did not like Grapefruit's intrusion into his territory. Grapes suffered more than a couple of stripes on the nose from Paradox. But after a while, there were no more cuts -- Paradox just seemed to want to tackle and show he was the badass of the house. Nowadays they seem to be getting a little closer -- the fights are much less common. My guess is that when we move into our new place, with more space, that things will be even better.
Grapefruit adapted well, bulking up quickly. She eats so much, so quickly, that she put on about 3 pounds in a month! She was looking chubby, especially around the neck, so we cut her food back, which makes her look better, but boy, is she mouthy when she wants food. She's lovable, though -- her purr is loud and grumbly, and she loves headbutting your hand and making you rub her white tummy. And while she has a nasty habit of projectile vomiting, I wouldn't trade her in for any other cat.
