Melon

I realized that I have been errant in keeping up with blogs about our cats, so here is another in a continuing series that I will try to update more frequently.

In 2004 Sarah and I started doing cat rescue. We had a feral mom and her kittens in the downstairs bathroom (which we weren't really using at the time), and four cats in the spare bedroom upstairs. These cats were on their way to the SPCA to be put down by their annoyed owner until Sarah stepped in and brought them home. More on them later.

In the midst of this, we thought it would be a GREAT idea to have another cat of our own, as we only had two at the time (those were the days). We were taking our rescue cats to the Delaware Humane Association because they had a very inexpensive spay/neuter program, compared to the local vets. We were looking through their website one day, and they had a photo gallery of all of the available animals for adoption, and we saw this photo of Melon:

Sarah and I both fell in love with Melon from this picture. The caption said he was a sweet boy and that he had FIV. Both of our cats also had FIV, so we figured what's one more cat? Sure.

I took a trip up to DHA to meet Melon. The first thing I found out was that he was a she, they assumed that Melon was a boy because she was an orange tabby, which is apparently rare in females (score!). They kept the sick cats out behind the main building, I don't remember if it was another building or just a shelter, but whomever was sick and contagious were kept out there. One of the staff took me out there and went inside and brought Melon out, into what I guess was the foyer part. There were other cats there walking around, seemingly starved for attention, and it did make me kind of sad and I wanted to take all of them home. The woman gave Melon to me and she was very small and very sweet, and let me put my face up to hers, which hardly any of the cats at home let me do. I decided that I wanted to take her home, and I thought Sarah would agree.

The director of DHA had gotten wind that I was there and was looking to adopt an FIV positive cat. He came out and asked me a lot of questions, I guess he wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to perform experiments on Melon or something like that. I assured him that we had FIV cats at home and just wanted to add to the party. He seemed assuaged by that and I made an appointment for Sarah and I to come back and pick her up.

Our other two cats at the time were male (incidentally, they both still are male), and Melon did not get along with them at all. She was always growling at them when they walked by her, and they seemed to give her a wide berth (the year before, we had acted as a sort of hospice for a terminally ill female cat who acted pretty much the same as Melon, more on her later). She also was very standoffish to us. It took her about 3 years before she would sit with us on the couch or tolerate petting from us. Our poor dog Niffler really got the short end of the deal, as he was never hostile to any of the cats, but they always were to him (not for long, more on that later, probably much later).

Melon eventually ingratiated herself to us and the rest of the cats, and will play with some of them, but not all of them. She really enjoys ripping up carpet, especially when she has a freakout and rips up the carpeting on the stairs. She's really done a number on those stairs.

A few years ago she got sick and she needed exploratory surgery. When she came home she had to wear a collar (which she was VERY happy about, as you can see) and stay in our room by herself for close to a month. She made a divot in the carpet by the door, always trying to get out. Later on, after she was better, she made another divot on the opposite side of the door trying to get back in. Cats.

Luckily the vet couldn't find anything, but after the surgery she... changed, a little bit. She gained a lot of weight, which is weird because she chases the other cats around quite a bit (we call her Melon Ball). When she lays on the floor on her side her legs almost stick up in the air. She also meows differently. I don't know how to describe it, maybe it sounds scratchier than her meow used to, but it's definitely different. She also has this weird tic with her tongue now, like she's trying to clean herself but failing. She's still a sweetheart though, maybe even moreso than before the surgery. She's a very good sleeping companion, she's not one who is trying to get you to pet her when you're trying to go to sleep. She stays near the foot of the bed and observes personal space rules. She will come to you if you call her to get some pets, but then she will go back to the foot of the bed when she gets tired of it. She also likes sitting on our lap or by our feet when we're on the couch watching tv. She makes the recliner go back down when she jumps on it though. She is a very sweet girl and even though we had too many cats at the time we got her, I'm glad we did.