Arthur Arrives

Arthur has been with us for over a month now and it’s like he’s always lived with us. He loved our house right from the start. Immediately he learned to watch Reilly and Barney so he knew what to do. It was funny how he’d follow their lead when it was mealtime, when to hide from the kids and when it is safe to come out for pets. He has not lost any of his personality quirks that Elizabeth told me about him. He has a tiny squeaky meow and he talks a lot and expects you to respond to him. He is also a climber, he jumped on counters and shelves that the other cats have never even noticed before. He especially likes scaling the toy shelves and storage boxes in the basement. I regularly hear crashes downstairs and later find a game or a box tipped over.

As for Reilly and Barney’s reaction to Arthur it was pretty tame, there was some hissing for a few days and even now there still is some but only in the evenings when its wrestling time. Arthur prefers to watch Barney and Reilly wrestle but sometimes he and Barney will wrestle a little. Reilly must know he’s the king cat because he takes his cranky mood out on Arthur and takes the liberty to smack him randomly if he walks by Reilly. Arthur takes it very well, I’ve even found him licking Reilly and trying to be his friend. Reilly is just a big cranky cat most of the time!

Arthur really loves food and is very crafty at opening packages and finding ways into the cupboards to help himself. I have to put the groceries away right away or Arthur helps himself. So far he’s opened hotdog buns and bagels. He also opened several bags of cat food so I’ve since moved the food to containers he hasn’t yet figured out. Reilly and Barney love when he gets in the cupboard and busts open a bag of food, that is probably helped with his acceptance in the household.

And the antics of Arthur haven’t stopped even to this day. He ate Braden’s plant that he brought home from school but Braden took it quite well. This morning after getting high on catnip he was racing into my closet intent on leaping on top of the suitcase to catapult himself up to the shelf and he fell of course. As he was descending he put out his very sharp back claws to grab onto something and that something was my exercise ball which now has a large tear and is deflated. I can’t see any patch that will work so it is off to the trash. Good thing we love you Arthur but you are so darn destructive.

Arthur's latest trick is to try to escape outside, he's very determined to check out the outside so anytime someone comes to the front door he hides nearby and bolts out when I open the door. The same goes for the back door so recently he was allowed a minute on the deck to explore before I shushed him back in. He really is like having another 2 year old in the house!