We brought home Roxy (originally Rosie) on October 10, 2014, when she was exactly six months old. She was very shy and skittish, and spent nearly all of her first week at home cowering behind the toilet! However, we persisted with gentle words and slow movements, gave her plenty of secret spots where she could safely hide and watch her new family, tossed her the occasional treat to catch and devour, and used feline pheromone spray around the house to help her relax. Eventually she stopped reacting to every new sound with “What’s that? Will it kill me?” and began to realize this was her home, and these were her people. She especially bonded with our niece, who is now away at college.

Roxy has gone from being almost silent to quite vocal. She likes the sound of her own voice and will sometimes sit in a corner with her head tilted up, meowing at the wall and enjoying the acoustics. She loves running wildly up and down the long hallway of our home when she’s excited. She still runs away when there’s a knock at the door, but two minutes later she will emerge to sniff at visitors. Roxy had her own cat bed, but eventually decided people beds were a lot more comfortable. She quite often burrows under a blanket for added warmth and security, and wakes us up in the morning by walking on her people and telling us she needs food now. She is a connoisseur of freshly-catnipped stuffed mouse toys and a chaser of the Mysterious Red Dot. And she likes to steal the computer chair for naps.

Roxy was recently lost outside for a few days, but after several sleepless nights – both for her and us, we suspect – we successfully brought her home with a humane trap we borrowed from MEOW. Thank you so much for your help in getting our sweet kitty back!

Curtis and Suzanne