Sunday, July 5, 2009

Adapting to a change of scene

As we were getting ready to make our move, one area of concern for us was how the animals would adapt to the change of environment. We expected that Pasha would adapt fairly quickly but Zeta would take quite a while to get used to a different household, but so far, it seems to be exactly the opposite.

We brought Zeta to the house the night before we moved, and she was seriously unhappy - she climbed inside her litterbox and hid there, and when we came over the next morning she gave no indication of having budged even an inch overnight. However, ever since we moved all of our stuff in (even with most of it still in boxes) she has warmed up and seems now to feel right at home - perhaps the familiar smells were all she needed? She's even more obsessed about getting to go outside than she was at the apartment (we actually lost her under the back deck for a few hours when she sneaked out once, but she came back out of her own accord) but other than that, seems to be the same silly cat as always.

Pasha, on the other hand, seems to still be out of sorts. She had some major stress-induced digestive upsets (vomiting, diarrhea, bloody stool) during the first week after the move, although with some veterinary help that now seems to be under control. Furthermore, although she loves the fenced back yard, and generally is content wandering around the house, she's become very skittish - any unexpected noise we make causes her to jump, and she seems to have developed a phobia of holes in the ground (such as the AC vents in our floor, and the storm drains about our neighborhood). There must be some use to this behavior - instead of a drug-sniffing dog, we have a hole-avoiding dog. If you're not sure where the holes in the ground might be, just take Pasha for a walk and see where she flees from in terror. Problem solved!

But seriously, it's sad to see her like this - hopefully she'll get over the skittishness once she gets more acclimated to her new home. Poor dog!

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