Sunday, September 30, 2012

Skittles' Newest Hiding Spot

Skittles has been with us for two and a half months now. She still does not trust me, though some progress has been made.  She’s been reunited with her mother and her sister, which is wonderful to see. I wasn't certain they would remember each other, but Pebbles and Skittles bonded almost immediately.  Sometimes I come home and they're curled up together, sleeping, as if they had never been apart.

It's rare that I get to witness these moments, though. Skittles has a truly heightened sense of awareness, even when sound asleep. The slightest change in the household will bring her to full alertness, and if she even gets the tiniest inkling that I am near, she will immediately bolt. As a result, I have very few pictures of Skittles, and those I do have, are not of the best quality, because she's usually on the move.

Skittles has found her safe spot. It's under my enormous bed.  She's found that she's small enough to squeeze under the platform base and has discovered the “cave” at the very back of the bed.  There's a large space behind the bed, beneath the headboard where she can hide and not be bothered. There's a window behind the bed and the sunlight from that window lights up the cave during the daytime and makes for a perfect kitty spot.  Of course, it’s also an anti-human spot. Accessing that particular spot involves removing the mattress and three giant boards from the platform bed, then lying flat on the ground in a tiny space to squeeze beneath the headboard to try to reach her.  Not that I’ve done any of this because that would just freak her out. I’m just saying… in a pinch, I’d be hard-pressed to get to her.

Ever since releasing her from the back bedroom, I’ve been wondering if I made a mistake.  At least while she was in the back bedroom, I was able to pet her on a daily basis. Now that she has a spot where she can truly become inaccessible to me, I have no hope of forcing any interactions with her, and have to instead rely upon her eventual desire to come to me. I wonder if this will ever happen.  I miss our bonding time and it breaks my heart to think that she probably doesn't feel the same at all.