Daisy Update in Going public

Foster kitty Daisy is doing well. Her rotten tooth breath is soo stinky, but she’s a sweet girl who chirps a lot and enjoys company. She’s still quarantined in a room by herself, and she misses me when I’m away.

Okay, story / drama time.

I’m working with a small local rescue organization who is helping with Daisy’s medical and dental care, and will facilitate her eventual adoption. The woman at the rescue who I communicate with is called S. She’s probably in her 50’s, not the most technologically adept, but has been very kind and helpful.

S and I formulated a plan: get Daisy medically stable (update vaccines, etc), I’d foster her through the holidays, and then we’d start looking for adopters. One of the important data points you need when putting a cat up for adoption is knowing whether they are good with other cats. Since both of my resident cats are super good with other cats, slowly introducing Daisy to them would be a great test of whether Daisy is friendly toward other felines.

So. That was the plan.

My friend E, who helped me with Daisy’s rescue, has a good friend in Canada who has been following along with the whole Daisy saga. Let’s call her P. Maybe a week after I got Daisy, P expressed interest in adopting Daisy. P already has one cat.

S and I thought it was great that Daisy had a potential adopter, so we told E and her friend P that we would just need to evaluate whether Daisy is friendly with other cats before we gave the go-ahead.

A week after Daisy got her vaccines, it was medically safe to introduce my cats to her. First, I did all the normal things you’re supposed to do when introducing cats for the first time (swapping scents, smelling before seeing, etc). I was quite optimistic about things because Daisy didn’t seem to react negatively when she would hear my cats meowing from the other room.

Cosmo was the most curious about Daisy and getting into her room, so one day I let him sneak in for a first impression. He barely acted like she existed, and was minding his own business. Daisy was immediately ON EDGE. She had the poofiest tail and was hissing and growling from across the room. I took Cosmo out.

Over the next several days, I kept trying slow introductions. I would say that Daisy got slightly less angry over time (maybe?), but was still quite agitated. I think on my last attempt I brought a bunch of treats in and distracted Daisy with food to get her to calm down. Daisy and Cosmo finally got physically close to one another, and did a little nose-sniff. Daisy did the most aggressive spitting hiss I’ve ever heard, and smacked him. Cosmo ran out of the room.

Throughout this process, I gave E and P frequent updates in our group chat about Daisy in general, and how introductions were going. I don’t fully understand how it happened, but E & P’s perception slowly changed from ‘we will wait to see how Daisy is with other cats before we go forward with this adoption’ to ‘P is definitely adopting Daisy no matter what’.

I chatted with E privately and was like “listen, I don’t want P to get her hopes up because S is gonna ask me how Daisy is with other cats, and I need to be honest that it hasn’t gone well.”

In response, E told me to “stop catastrophizing”.

Y’all, I was pretty offended. Never was I being panicky or dramatic about the situation! I didn’t even feel stressed about it. I was just sharing what I observed.

I decided to stop letting Cosmo and Daisy interact - it just wasn’t working.

E and P continued to get hyped about P adopting Daisy. P has a couple kids and got them all excited and involved.

I then got a case of the ‘fuck-its’ and just decided - fine, if you wanna adopt a cat who is not friendly with other cats and wanna struggle with cat fights in your home, go for it! Have fun with that.

The drama doesn’t quite end there.

Because S is handling the adoption through the rescue, she has all of Daisy’s paperwork, some of which is required for an animal to cross the border to Canada. E is driving Daisy to the border, so she needs to bring the paperwork and interact with border patrol.

S was trying to coordinate with us to get the right paperwork in the right hands and E and P were being soo petty about it. They wanted S to email copies, when S was saying that certified paper copies were required for border crossing. E and P were calling S “ridiculous” and claimed that the border guards wouldn’t even care to see the paperwork. It’s possible that they are correct, but do you really wanna chance it and drive three hours north only to be turned around? I felt like S was just doing her due diligence and was doing her best to make this INTERNATIONAL adoption work out. Like, damn, she’s just a volunteer at the end of the day. But, due to my case of the ‘fuck-it’s’ I stayed quiet and let them talk.

This is why you don’t do business with friends! It’s not even really business in my case, but I think the same advice applies.

E is driving Daisy up to the border on Saturday, where she can begin her new life. P is a good person, so I think she will do her best to integrate Daisy into her family, and I wish them the best. Whatever happens, I think Daisy will have a better life than she’s had so far. If nothing else, I’ve gotten her away from an abuser, and will have gotten her much needed healthcare.