If John & I had acted "sensibly," Sky wouldn't have been with us longer than a scant day. Traumatized by rough care as a kitty, he'd been a challenge for his previous guardian, who'd had to put him into our care when her health situation necessitated finding new homes for her clowder of cats.
The last thing Sky needed was fresh trauma. Losing a human he'd come to trust, to be thrust into a large group of unknown & basically hostile cats - with the exception of Lakota, a sweet cat who came with him - shook the wee small kitty. He basically hid under our bed, where he did all sorts of very smelly things.
It took months & months for him to finally come downstairs. Then, he took to sleeping with me, stretched out between my upper body & the back of the den couch. I marveled at how he managed to breathe!
Slowly, slowly he started sleeping on my chest - Sky IS a wee small kitty - then to my right, on another couch cushion, ultimately at my feet, and finally heading upstairs for the rare slumber with the other 2-leg in the house.
He still doesn't use the litter box. Hence, the well-diapered couch. But he still occasionally does whatever in inconvenient places. (Sky is the reason NO kitty is allowed in the computer studio, in spite of the basic good behavior of the others - too risky.)
Our house smells to high heaven because of that wee small kitty. We don't have friends over, which goes completely against our natures. He's been nothing but a detriment to the value of our house. And he still doesn't get along with the rest of the cats, with the exception of his longtime housemate, Lakota - and even they aren't as chummy as they apparently were at Leslie's.
All that being said, can't imagine my life without the lessons learned through that wee, small kitty. If interacting with Jada & her kittens helped me connect to Ian, Sky has helped me gain invaluable insights into the challenges of parenting a "problem" child, of the importance of setting down well-defined boundaries so that there can be give & take on both sides, resulting in healthy compromises. I've learned that even frien-emies have strong relationships, that - with proper encouragement & reinforcement & what feels at times like endless patience - all creatures of all sorts can develop & grow in unimaginable ways IF there is an opportunity.
