Our inside cat Sweet Pea ventured out into the kitchen and breakfast room today, having been absent from these rooms since we brought Savannah into the house that first day. (That absence was his own doing, not ours.) I think Sweet Pea was highly insulted to see a puppy walking in 'his' kitchen, but he quietly kept to himself, hiding behind the sofa and the chairs in the TV room when we let Savannah into "the cat's room" for a little while every night when we went in there to watch the news.
My husband and I were both worried about Sweet Pea's reaction to Savannah because this cat has been such a sweet and loving soul since the day he turned up in our barn nearly four years ago. We didn't want a sweet cat to turn into a holy terror (which has happened to us before), but being that Savannah has made friends with our two outside cats, I figured that it would be just a matter of time until Sweet Pea was ready to say hello. And possibly even "Welcome, Puppy!"
For practically all of this evening, Sweet Pea has been sitting up on a counter-top, meowing quietly at Savannah and watching her play with her toys. Savannah gets a puppy-burst of energy every night between 7:00 and 9:00... she takes her toys (either the blue monkey or the white bunny) and she tosses them up in the air and her mouth is open in that puppy smile of hers and you can see that she's just so pleased with her little puppy self. Sweet Pea has been watching all of this from his safe spot up high, his eyes never leaving the toys that go up into the air then hit the floor with a soft thud.
When I take Savannah out for a walk, Sweet Pea sits by the window and watches us until we're out of sight, and I know that Sweet Pea can see both Gatsby and Mickey walk up to Savannah and rub her nose with their own whiskered faces... surely our inside cat must take that as a sign of acceptance and trust from our two outside cats who spend their days on our porch and their nights in the garage.
Speaking of trust, Savannah is learning to trust everything a little bit more each day. She comes to me when I call her, except for the times when she knows I'm going to put her in the crate and then leave the house. I'm tempted to just let her have free run in the kitchen and breakfast room, but depending on how long I need to be gone, I just don't want to take chances with the furniture or decorative items in these rooms just yet. If something made of porcelain or glass falls to the floor when a blue monkey knocks it over, she could easily hurt her paws on the broken pieces. As it is now, if I have to go upstairs or outside for ten minutes or less, then I will not make her go into the crate. When I come back into the house, Savannah is usually right there by the kitchen door waiting for me.... and nothing but her own toys have been touched.
I can't very well make the entire house puppy-safe, and I never did that for our dog Gracie (or for any of our cats, for that matter). Our pets always just learned what they could and could not touch, and after a few months with us, they were just fine. Looking back over the years, I don't think any of our pets ever broke anything except unimportant items that were bought at yard sales or flea markets and kept on the back porch or in the yard for decoration. With our dog Gracie, we expected her to behave well wherever we took her, and she always did (especially after some serious training lessons) which brought comments from family and friends that our Gracie had better manners than most people's children. (High praise indeed, and both my husband and I just ate that up.)
Speaking of Gracie, I know that my husband expected Savannah to be another Gracie, and I understand why he's disappointed that this puppy didn't bond with him from Moment One on Day One. We had Gracie for fifteen years and she and my husband were inseparable for the most part, with Gracie moping around the house every day when he went to work, only consenting to walk with me because there was no one else but me to take her. From Day One with Gracie, she was my husband's dog, plain and simple. In Gracie's eyes, I was a poor substitute when her 'daddy' wasn't home. I knew that from the beginning, and I accepted the fact... and Gracie felt the same way about everyone else as well... no one could have ever taken my husband's place in her heart.
And now, with Savannah.... I think this puppy bonded with me during that car ride home on the day we adopted her.... she had first curled up on the far end of the back seat of my husband's car, but within the first ten minutes of the drive towards home, she crawled over closer to me, put her head on my arm and her two front paws on top of my hands and that was that... a big sigh came out of her and she felt safe enough to sleep during the ride home. I chose to sit back there with her that day because we didn't know how she would react in a car... she had never been in one before.
There are still moments now when a loud noise will startle her, and if I take out the vacuum or the ironing board, she will run as far away from me as she can get, watching me from a distance to see what I'm doing with those strange things. She even used to run away when I took out the mop for the kitchen floor... she makes quite a mess when she takes a drink of water. But I guess she's used to the mop now because she will sit there with that big puppy smile on her face and watch me clean the floor. I mop the wet tiles quickly, getting up all of that water, talking to her and telling her that my life was easier without all that mopping, but not nearly as much fun. And she smiles... just sits there and smiles.
It's only been 12 days but it feels like Savannah has been with us for so much longer. I realize that she has a lot to get used to, between noises from the ice-maker, the dishwasher, the vacuum, the lawn mower outside and the washing machine inside. And she has yet to really truly make peace with my husband and come to the realization that he is just as friendly as I am, and will love her just as much as I do if she would only give him half a chance.
Time. This process takes time. We just have to remember that we put ourselves into this puppy's life, took her away from everything and everyone she knew, named her Savannah, brought her out into this country bubble of ours, and we can't expect her to take up where our other dog Gracie left off. It is just not going to happen that way, no matter how much my husband wishes it would. And besides that, it wouldn't be fair to Savannah, and it wouldn't even be fair to the memory of Gracie.
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