Last week, Bridget of the Ravell’d Sleave posted about her newest furry family member Alfie, and how well he’s fit in with the other cats.

And it got me thinking about my boys. Introducing a new cat to a home is always a tricky business. I’ve always been rather lucky in that respect. After a day or two of hissing and general attitude, things settled down and we had no more problems.

That is until this Ginger Mister sauntered in.

At first, it wasn’t a problem . When I adopted him, there was only Peno. She took about a week to tolerate him, and he was really good with our old senior girl. He mostly just wanted to snuggle up with her when she slept, and she decided she could live with that.

Then I brought Burton home. After some hissing and a few swats, Rupert realized he had someone who he could chase around, and he liked that quite a bit. But Burton was a kitten, so I think that made things easier for him.

But then a few months later, Relic started showing up in the backyard. And a few months after that, Dave was letting him in the house. And Rupert was not down with that. Maybe it was that Relic was a full grown cat (and three times Rupert’s size), and maybe because Relic had been “invading” Rupert’s territory (the backyard) for months before we took him in. Whatever it was, Relic was the enemy. And it wasn’t Relic’s fault.

Rupert would sneak attack Relic any chance he got. And it took a full year before Rupert finally accepted his presence and settled down. And even then, there would still be sneak attacks.

It wasn’t until last year that they really started being friends – actually playing with each other. And now… it seems like every time I turn around, this is what I see.

Cats are weird!