Meet Ellie and Elliot
We’re finally getting settled in our new home and have decided to adopt our new family. Meet Ellie and Elliot Burns. The lady at Cat Angels told us they were three years old (born December 29, 2014).
Apparently they lived with an abusive family (I don’t think the cats were abused, possibly domestic abuse?), the father was in jail and the mother had mental issues. The children were placed in foster care and the cats brought to Cat Angels. After a few days of waiting and their final check up by the vet, the adoption was finalized March 29, 2018.
Our new kids are settling in nicely. The people at Cat Angels said Ellie may take longer to get comfortable, but we found that it actually took Elliot longer. Ellie was the first out of the crate. However, they both were a bit skittish and tended to hide in the closets and under the bed the first few days.
It didn’t take them long, though, to begin exploring. We initially placed them, their food and litter box in the master bath. After a day we opened the door to the bedroom and the next day opened the door to the rest of the house.
They appear to like to jump up, but are very good about not getting on the kitchen counter. They love the closets to sleep and hide in and sometimes under the bed. Ellie likes to be with us and sleeps on the couch when we’re watching TV. Elliot disappears and sleeps under the bed or who knows where? He is also more sensitive to noise and whenever there is noise from upstairs or in the house he skedaddles.
At night, they are both on our bed off and on throughout the night. We will go to sleep with Elliot on the bed and wake up to find Ellie on the bed. Last night they were both on the bed, Elliot on Johns side and Ellie on mine.
Ellie is tolerant of Mia picking her up, but Elliot does not like to be picked up. He’s warming up, but still nervous around visitors.
Ellie plays with the mice toys and balls we got for them. She will roll the ball around and fetch it. She delivers her mice and we throw it for her. We had some other toys, too and Elliot became the destroyer. We found a mouse all shredded with the insides all torn out. Perhaps the cause of his next adventure?
We felt they were getting used to us and settling in nicely when Elliot appeared to stop eating. He seemed ‘off’ and it was worrisome, so we placed him in the carrier and took him to the vet after not eating for a couple of days. All the trust we had built with him, went out the window.
The vet ran tests and did an ultrasound. It looked like his stomach was empty (no surprise there) but there was something they couldn’t identify bunched up in his intestine area. We decided to go ahead with exploratory surgery. (No, we did not have insurance, John had decided to get insurance and had done the research, but hadn’t bought it yet. Yikes…$$.)
They didn’t find anything to cause him to stop eating, so they gave him some meds and kept him overnight. We brought him home the next day, saying the meds should help with his appetite and he should start eating. We brought him home Thursday and by Friday he was still not eating. Since the vet was closed on weekends, we called the Vet and they said to bring him back in. $$
By Friday, he had developed a fever, so they gave him antibiotics and said to take him in to emergency if he didn’t improve over the weekend. By Saturday, he seemed to eat a little and by Sunday was eating a bit more. Phew!! He appeared to be on the mend and within a week appeared to be back to normal.
They are finally beginning to accept us and come sit by us or on our laps on occasion. Ellie is a talker, she makes funny noises and meows quite a bit. Elliot is quieter, but does meow on occasion.
They love hanging out in our screened in porch and use the cat door we had installed when we built the house. We put up their cat condo on the porch and they use it daily. They are beginning to hang out with us more and are turning out to be really great kids.
