Life with Bing and Darcy
Mar. 15th, 2021 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrThe new kitten Darcy has settled in pretty well! It was chancy for a while: while they were both open to being friendly from early on, it turns out Bing's default response to anxiety is to get bitey, and since he's like twice her size that could have ended very badly. But we kept them in separate rooms with only limited contact until he'd chilled out enough to be mostly calm around her, and now they get along pretty well.
Behold Bing's weird-ass way of lying down, and Darcy's tininess:
There's a LOT of playfighting, which Cam and I were initially worried about, but I looked up how you tell whether it's actual fighting and 99% of the time they're both showing signs of enjoying it. Sometimes Bing takes things too far, especially when he's pissed off about something like a late dinner (which is such a jerk move, picking on the little kitten when he's pissed at us), and then Darcy lets out an angry squeak or hiss. We used to have to separate them at that point but Bing's gotten better at backing off by himself. And since she's smaller and more agile she's perfectly capable of keeping safe from him if she really wanted to, she's just generally unwilling to back down from a fight (and is the one initiating them half the time).
Other than that they just hang out together, booping noses to say hi and then sitting near each other to sniff at the screen door, take naps on either side of the bed etc. They like to keep a certain amount of distance, and Bing responds to any licking or nuzzling by Darcy with bites, but she gets plenty of snuggles from us when she wants it.
She's a friendly, clever, chatty little thing. We started out by putting a gate between them, and Bing would just stare at it sadly but Darcy got this determined look in her eyes and tried every way she could to get past it: shifting it sideways, finding gaps, figuring out routes for jumping etc. She loves playing and fighting and chasing, we got her because we didn't have the energy to do those things with Bing as much as he obviously wanted but these days he often gets this look of "Oh god the kitten wants to play AGAIN? I am LE TIRED". But he seems pretty fond of her, sometimes he'll sit and watch her playing with a bit of rubbish etc with this very soft blinky expression.
Her favourite toy is cotton buds, she bats them around and chews on them with energetic enthusiasm until they get stuck under a bit of furniture and she wails mournfully until we give her another one. In general she loves chewing on and catching things, and from the way she sharply watches birds on tvs or outside I suspect she'd single-handedly send a few native species extinct if she wasn't an indoor cat.
Bing is much less agile, he seems to have some sort of mild leg issue that makes him slower and less able to jump. Also birds scare him. But he did catch a little gecko that got inside once, he kept slowly picking it up in his mouth then dropping it until it made a distraction by dropping it's tail, which gave me the chance to rescue the poor thing. Darcy was watching avidly, but when a cockroach showed up in the kitchen she wailed at me to make the weird noises stop. So maybe the birds aren't in as much danger as she'd like to think.
When we first got Bing he was tiny, skinny, needy, and constantly hungry. Once we realised quite how much food it took to make him stop being hungry we talked to the vet, and she diagnosed him with being A Very Hungry Boy, probably a former streetcat with a fear of starvation. After a few months of Lots Of Food he's not only less skinny, but noticeably more muscular and strong, and possibly even larger lengthways. He's also much happier: he used to spend all his time eating, begging for food, restlessly neurotic or collapsed asleep, and now he spends a lot more time being happy and chill. He's gotten a lot less physically affectionate, but we're pretty sure that's because he no longer feels like he has to wheedle his way into getting fed, and I'd rather he be happy but distant if that's what he actually wants. He's still pretty friendly, but while he snuggles with Cam, with me he just prefers to chill a little distance away and only get the odd pat. We're keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get too chubby, but Darcy is certainly making sure he gets plenty of exercise haha.
Meanwhile Darcy snuggles with me, and makes sad noises if I leave the room when she wants me around, but while she likes Cam she never seeks him out. Which is ironic because when we first were discussing getting a cat, one motive was that Bing seemed to dislike Cam after being yelled at about stealing his food. But once Cam realised he had to set boundaries without yelling, Bing quickly decided he was the best human for snuggling. I think it might be the beard.
Bing is, as I mentioned, rather bitey. We have thankfully managed to train him not to bite us with any force, and mostly these days he doesn't even touch us, it's more "I am symbolically biting in your direction to indicate my annoyance/desire for personal space", which is fine. Since Darcy never met a boundary she didn't want to jump over on principle she gets bit for real, but even then he's usually fairly gentle.
We had an unfortunate period not long after getting Bing where he'd gorge himself on dry food then vomit it all back up. We got him a puzzle tree that slowed down his eating, he always looked VERY HARD DONE BY when we put food in it but it settled his stomach.
Since kitten food is different to adult cat food and both of them MUCH prefer each other's food to their own we got some automatic feeders which open based on the cat's microchips (which all cats have here) These work pretty well, and so far Bing's not had any issues being given a bowl of dry food to eat at his own pace.
Right now Bing has settled himself on the couch just out of hand's reach, and when I am done writing this I will lean over and give him a pat. I'm not sure where Darcy is, causing mischief no doubt, but I will give her a pat too when I find her. Having two cats is really nice! I always felt bad about not being very exciting company, but now they get enough playful interaction from each other and just come to me and Cam when they want to chill.
Behold Bing's weird-ass way of lying down, and Darcy's tininess:
There's a LOT of playfighting, which Cam and I were initially worried about, but I looked up how you tell whether it's actual fighting and 99% of the time they're both showing signs of enjoying it. Sometimes Bing takes things too far, especially when he's pissed off about something like a late dinner (which is such a jerk move, picking on the little kitten when he's pissed at us), and then Darcy lets out an angry squeak or hiss. We used to have to separate them at that point but Bing's gotten better at backing off by himself. And since she's smaller and more agile she's perfectly capable of keeping safe from him if she really wanted to, she's just generally unwilling to back down from a fight (and is the one initiating them half the time).
Other than that they just hang out together, booping noses to say hi and then sitting near each other to sniff at the screen door, take naps on either side of the bed etc. They like to keep a certain amount of distance, and Bing responds to any licking or nuzzling by Darcy with bites, but she gets plenty of snuggles from us when she wants it.
She's a friendly, clever, chatty little thing. We started out by putting a gate between them, and Bing would just stare at it sadly but Darcy got this determined look in her eyes and tried every way she could to get past it: shifting it sideways, finding gaps, figuring out routes for jumping etc. She loves playing and fighting and chasing, we got her because we didn't have the energy to do those things with Bing as much as he obviously wanted but these days he often gets this look of "Oh god the kitten wants to play AGAIN? I am LE TIRED". But he seems pretty fond of her, sometimes he'll sit and watch her playing with a bit of rubbish etc with this very soft blinky expression.
Her favourite toy is cotton buds, she bats them around and chews on them with energetic enthusiasm until they get stuck under a bit of furniture and she wails mournfully until we give her another one. In general she loves chewing on and catching things, and from the way she sharply watches birds on tvs or outside I suspect she'd single-handedly send a few native species extinct if she wasn't an indoor cat.
Bing is much less agile, he seems to have some sort of mild leg issue that makes him slower and less able to jump. Also birds scare him. But he did catch a little gecko that got inside once, he kept slowly picking it up in his mouth then dropping it until it made a distraction by dropping it's tail, which gave me the chance to rescue the poor thing. Darcy was watching avidly, but when a cockroach showed up in the kitchen she wailed at me to make the weird noises stop. So maybe the birds aren't in as much danger as she'd like to think.
When we first got Bing he was tiny, skinny, needy, and constantly hungry. Once we realised quite how much food it took to make him stop being hungry we talked to the vet, and she diagnosed him with being A Very Hungry Boy, probably a former streetcat with a fear of starvation. After a few months of Lots Of Food he's not only less skinny, but noticeably more muscular and strong, and possibly even larger lengthways. He's also much happier: he used to spend all his time eating, begging for food, restlessly neurotic or collapsed asleep, and now he spends a lot more time being happy and chill. He's gotten a lot less physically affectionate, but we're pretty sure that's because he no longer feels like he has to wheedle his way into getting fed, and I'd rather he be happy but distant if that's what he actually wants. He's still pretty friendly, but while he snuggles with Cam, with me he just prefers to chill a little distance away and only get the odd pat. We're keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get too chubby, but Darcy is certainly making sure he gets plenty of exercise haha.
Meanwhile Darcy snuggles with me, and makes sad noises if I leave the room when she wants me around, but while she likes Cam she never seeks him out. Which is ironic because when we first were discussing getting a cat, one motive was that Bing seemed to dislike Cam after being yelled at about stealing his food. But once Cam realised he had to set boundaries without yelling, Bing quickly decided he was the best human for snuggling. I think it might be the beard.
Bing is, as I mentioned, rather bitey. We have thankfully managed to train him not to bite us with any force, and mostly these days he doesn't even touch us, it's more "I am symbolically biting in your direction to indicate my annoyance/desire for personal space", which is fine. Since Darcy never met a boundary she didn't want to jump over on principle she gets bit for real, but even then he's usually fairly gentle.
We had an unfortunate period not long after getting Bing where he'd gorge himself on dry food then vomit it all back up. We got him a puzzle tree that slowed down his eating, he always looked VERY HARD DONE BY when we put food in it but it settled his stomach.
Since kitten food is different to adult cat food and both of them MUCH prefer each other's food to their own we got some automatic feeders which open based on the cat's microchips (which all cats have here) These work pretty well, and so far Bing's not had any issues being given a bowl of dry food to eat at his own pace.
Right now Bing has settled himself on the couch just out of hand's reach, and when I am done writing this I will lean over and give him a pat. I'm not sure where Darcy is, causing mischief no doubt, but I will give her a pat too when I find her. Having two cats is really nice! I always felt bad about not being very exciting company, but now they get enough playful interaction from each other and just come to me and Cam when they want to chill.
