Debi's House of Damaged Boys

Tamoshanter (Tam) is an 11 year old orange male tabby cat that came to us last March. He'd been living with some dogs in the home of the father of his previous owner when she left college. He is huge, and at 23 pounds one of the biggest cats we've seen and actually bigger than either of the two cats that Debi had brought from Florida, also orange tabs. Tam really caught our attention because he seemed by the pictures to be a mix between our original cats, and when he showed up he was actually bigger than either of them.

Over the past few months, the weather has been nice enough for us to take Tam out on the 2nd floor landing of our condo building, so he's enjoying the sounds and smells. But he's still not getting enough exercise, sort of like yours truly. Because we knew that the condo was big enough for two cats, we decided to try and find a companion for Tam. On Sunday we found one.

Cosmos was a stray that was brought into the Seattle Humane Society on May 10th. He is about two and a half years old. He's another orange tab, about 11 pounds. He's been through some really rough times, so he is pretty much skin and bones. His hair is dry and rough, and they had to shave quite a bit because of matting. They did the fixing surgery, which it looks like he's pretty much recovered from, but he's certainly a rescue.

We brought him home, and opened the top of the box in the living room. Tam was very dominating, so we brought Cosmos upstairs to Shea's room, set up a small cat box and food, and gave him a safe space. The little guy is a minx, and small enough to hide in a bunch of different places. He actually found a way under Shea's bed in the trundle, hiding among the blankets and luggage. According to Shea, he came out a few times during the night and actually spent much of the night on Shea's feet. All of the food was gone when we got up this morning, and he had used his box. Tam spent his night going back and forth between Shea's closed door and the open window in our room where his short tree is.

We're going to give Cosmos a few days of good rest and food, then open the door to the rest of the condo. We figure it will take about a year before he's fully healthy. It's a great long term project for Shea, and the bonding will be good for him.

Yet another guest in Debi's House of Damaged Boys.

Oh, and this morning I did the Greenlake loop in about 50 minutes. That's pretty good time for not having done that in 8 months.