Welcome Home Gracie

This probably comes as a bit of a surprise given that I posted on the 24th about being torn up about the disappearance of the barn kitten that we were going to adopt. I am still kinda torn up about that to be honest, and none of the three kittens have shown up. My wife did in fact immediately return to bombarding me with kittens, but that is probably a good thing in the long run. Our local animal welfare shelter is full to the point of overflowing, and as a result, had waived all adoption fees. After work on Friday, I agreed that we should probably go out there and at least take a look because saving an animal from a Shelter is always a good thing. My adorable Josie butt came from this same Animal Welfare, so we had good luck before… what is to say we would not have good luck again.

We were not there for very long before Miss Gracie stole my heart. This is a picture of her that I snapped as we were on our way up to the front office to adopt her. She was the runt of a litter of kittens that had come into the shelter the same day we came by to look. One of the four was already adopted, but I have a serious bone to pick with whoever decided to name this group. You had Porkchop, Potato Salad, Fruit Salad, and Carrot Cake… so I am guessing either someone was planning for a picnic or they were just hungry. Miss Gracie was originally referred to as Fruit Salad… and there is no way we are actually going to keep calling her that. The funny thing is that my wife landed on the name Gracie, but in my headcanon, we named her after my good friend Grace. Both are “smol” and fiesty, so it works.

Right now she is sequestered in my wife’s office, as we usually do with a new cat for at least a few days before introducing them to the rest of the family. It was hilarious last night, that as we lay in bed… we could hear her running laps around the office and randomly pouncing on things. For being as tiny as she is… she certainly SOUNDS like a much bigger cat. The sheet on her cage at the shelter said that she was 4 months old, but when we got the official paperwork… it was more like 2 months. She is maybe the smallest cat that we have ever adopted… save for MAYBE Kenzie who did not go through a shelter system. She has very much not been weaned for very long… or was force weaned because of the loss of a mommy. Every time we love her she goes through the familiar behavior of trying to find a nipple. We went through this with Kenzie as well, and even years later she liked to go through a nursing behavior with a blanket for comfort.

Over the weekend we had a bit of a scramble for setting up the office for her. We technically adopted her on Friday, but could not pick her up until last night because she still needed to be spayed. Essentially we have plenty of toys around the house and even have them in a little toybox downstairs. However, we wanted to start Gracie out with some fresh toys of her own. Right now the clear winner is this little scratcher/playmat thing that we got for $4 at big lots. She loves pouncing on the little plastic rods with the doodads attached to them. We also got these adorable little fuzzy sloth toys that she likes throwing up and catching. Essentially they are about the size of your standard “mouse” toy, but much cuter. She has not really taken to the crinkle ball made out of like wadded-up iridescent mylar ribbon. I figure coming from the spartan confines of a shelter cage… she is maybe a little overstimulated.

Admittedly this post is largely just a vehicle for me to share a bunch of photos of Miss Gracie. Please love her as much as I already do. I hope she bonds with at least one of our two other cats, and the transition to the larger home environment goes smoothly.