Today is liberation day in our house — the new cats no longer need to be quarantined and are being given free reign of the house. And not a moment too soon!

While Sam was off at the vet to get a shot and a final clean bill of health, I let Emma out into the house at large. Scout had already met the cats, we had let her see them over the course of the week and then last night she came to their door and wanted in to meet them. I held Sam back (we weren’t sure if his respiratory infection was still contagious) but she met Emma and then wanted back out after a couple of minutes.

Today was the first time she met Emma on an equal footing, and I thought the meeting would be more adversarial as Emma invaded Scout’s turf for the first time. But as you can see from the picture above, Scout walked over and gave Emma a good sniffing and kind of idly followed her around as Emma explored the house.

Emma’s still pretty unsure of herself in the big house, but she and Scout are clearly tolerating each other pretty well, much better than I was expecting. Sam is zonked out after his vet visit so his exploration of the house will have to wait — seeing how he likes to snuggle with both people and cats, it will be interesting to see if Scout lets him snuggle with her, since she always wanted to cuddle up with Templeton.

A picture of Sam playing yesterday. At first I was annoyed with myself for not doing a better job and getting everything in frame, but after a while the picture grew on me and I like the way the composition highlights the helter skelter style of his play.

After giving praise to the Oregon Humane Society and our vets at Laurelhurst, I have a major bone to pick with both of them.

The Humane Society told us that Sam might have an upper respiratory infection, had diarrhea, and had been treated for fleas and ear mites. All good, we wanted to know as much of the little guy’s medical history as possible.

Sam got an exam at Laurelhurst as soon as possible and it was discovered that the mites were probably gone but he had a yeast infection in his ears, so we’ve been treating that.

But how is it that both of these fine organizations neglected to tell us that little Sam has Jedi powers?

I was watching Sam and Emma play with their furry mice when suddenly Sam began to levitate the albino mouse. Fortunately I had my camera in hand to document the event, as people tend to not believe me about things like this.

Maybe we should have named him Yoda?

Sam and Emma have been with us for a week now, since Monday they’ve both been staying in the guest bedroom and are already getting along pretty well. They’re both eating and drinking, playing apart and sometimes together, and are getting close to the point where we let them meet Scout.

Which is good, because they are definitely ready to get out of their room.

Emma’s stopped sneezing so I think she’s over her respiratory infection, but little Sam is still sneezing so we don’t want Scout to have contact with him yet. His ears must be responding well to the medicine as he isn’t rubbing them anymore. He doesn’t exactly like having the cold drops (the medicine has to be stored in the fridge) placed in his ears, not that I blame him, but I’m definitely learning that you want to catch him when he’s sleepy.

This picture is of Emma playing today, unfortunately I missed the focus (her black fur is impossible for autofocus to lock onto) and I didn’t have enough depth of field, but it’s a cute enough picture that shows her playful side that I still like it.