Stubborn Love
How I learned about healing from my rescue cats.
I have two cats, a grey tabby and a black one.
They are about 3 years apart — Bisu is three years and Peanut is the baby, not yet even one. Personality-wise, they are total opposites.
The grey tabby — Bisu — is generally cranky and would rather be left alone. I’m sure if she had musical preferences, they might run along the same lines as the Singles soundtrack mixed with WuTang for days. She’s mean as shit. I don’t consider this her fault. She was a kitten from a feral colony on our street. She decided to adopt us on a very cold and rainy November afternoon. She spotted my husband (of three weeks at that point. That cat almost precipitated a quick divorce) and started screaming her little kitten head off, undeterred by the fact that my dog was also with my husband.
We thought about adopting her out, or maybe someone had lost her. In the end, of course, no one was looking for her. We decided to keep her. She was a tough little tiny bobcat-looking thing, who also was covered in ringworm (that was a fun couple of months. And by fun I mean I learned every trick in sanitizing anything in the house, as well as ways to treat ringworm on humans, felines and canines.)
There was also evidence of trauma, and we’ll never know the full story. When Bisu found us, she was missing all of her whiskers on her left side. The vet said that this happens a lot to feral cats — usually because they try to get warm next to car engines. Normally it singed off the whiskers. Or maybe they got stuck somewhere and got yanked out. Hard to know. They were missing. And she was mean as shit. Something traumatic had happened.
Bisu was not — despite how she was displayed on social media — an easy cat to assimilate into the house. She aggressively bit, clawed and scratched. She did not want to cuddle. She attacked everything, especially soft human skin. I almost thought we weren’t going to make it, even with my husband and I doing everything we could to accommodate her and help her integrate into our small two-humans-one-dog-that-thinks-she’s-human household. I started combing the internet for advice, as well as emailed and texted with dozens of my animal-rescue friends.
I found an article about swaddling aggressive kittens. This actually helped for a while — in fact almost too well. The first few times I swaddled Bisu, she fell dead asleep and I was worried I had done something wrong. Eventually, she wouldn’t tolerate being rolled in a towel, so I stopped. It didn’t soften Bisu at all.
Eventually, Peanut came into our lives. I was visiting a friend in DC, and she was fostering three of the most affectionate kittens I had ever met. If you picked them up, they started purring so loudly their tiny kitten bodies would shake. They were so outgoing and active and fearless and adored being touched and cuddled. I decided that the black kitten, who was particularly affectionate towards me, should come back to Austin when I went home. In the intervening days, I asked myself a million questions about the insanity of taking a cat home on a plane. Finally, one of my friends who is very dedicated to animal rescue and has zero tolerance for irresponsible actions said to me “if I thought this was a bad idea, I would just tell you point blank to your face. This seems like a good idea.”
So home Peanut came to Austin!
Following a very tense couple of weeks of family integration, I finally could let the three animals roam free in the house without too much supervision. (Pro-tip, if you’re trying to integrate a new feline family member, treats and kibble go a long way. We play a game at our house of “chase the kibble”, and it was something that really helped Bisu stop growling like a broken vacuum cleaner every time she smelled Peanut.)
What’s interesting is that Peanut, despite the firm and sometimes contentious rebuffing of Bisu, would not relent in being kind towards the older cat. She kept trying to groom and bathe Bisu. Over weeks, Peanut made inroads. Now she can bathe Bisu occasionally without it immediately turning in to a fight.
Well, most of the time.
Peanut is highly social. She can’t stand to be a in a room by herself. She comes at the sound of a human voice, and usually demands (via vigorous head-butting) to be held, and pet and fed. She is curious and wants to share every last experience you are having. I work from home and she has decided that my desk is her nap place. She has a sort of extroverted optimism (I’m probably anthropomorphizing but bear with me.)
The most surprising thing from this experience of integrating a new family member is that Bisu has been acting more like a cat.
Like, a nice cat.
For the first time in the three years we’ve had her, she’s started to make biscuits without claws— that rubbing and mashing of paws before settling down to curl up and sleep. This is new, and is sometimes considered a signal of feline affection.
She’s stopped attacking ankles at mealtimes (and she used to bite hard.) She has been demanding to go outside more (extremely vocally. Imagine a cat loudly meowing, for hours on end. Caterwauling meows, not some cute meow. It’s like cat direct action in this house sometimes. Did I mention I work from home?)
Today was a big deal. Bisu and I went outside and I let her roam, highly supervised. She seems to be hell bent on answering the call of the wild, and in some cases, she has run off. Each time, she came back, cranky and dehydrated.
Today was a little different. She and I walked around the back yard, her sniffing rocks and leaves. Finally, she jumped up on the stone boundary to one of my large flower beds. I noticed something so peculiar, and possibly a positive sign. She sat, watching the dozens of butterflies having their butterfly brunch, making biscuits where she sat. She was staring at something I couldn’t see. She was transfixed.
She jumped down off the ledge, and I decided it was time to go inside. When picked her up, she didn’t struggle (as she usually does.) We walked into the house, and I got another cup of coffee.
As I sat and ate breakfast, Bisu sat in the window sill in the dining room, staring out of the window, through the screen. Peanut snuck up behind Bisu. Watching the translucent triangles of their ears as they watched a squirrel eat a pecan, my heart swelled. How far they had come in such a short time!
Then Peanut leaned over and started licking the top of Bisu’s head. I held my breath, perched to break up a potential fight.
No fight.
Bisu tilted her head up to sniff Peanut, and then kept watching the squirrel.
Later that morning, Bisu did another unexpected thing. She walked up to my husband (who, up until this point was as interesting to her as a folding chair, unless he was feeding her), and rubbed her face on his leg, and then made biscuits. She’s never been so affectionate towards him, ever.
I’m not a veterinarian, or a formally trained animal behaviorist. But I know my pets, and I am highly observant. I know trauma, too, and I’ve also seen healing, which is what I think is what’s happening in this house.
There is a deep healing power in optimism and in unrelenting kindness.
I am convinced that Peanut came to our household for a reason, and that her love and attention towards Bisu is helping Bisu become a better cat. I don’t know that this is always the case with animals, but it is pretty magical to observe it with Bisu and Peanut.
I think there is a lesson, too, to be learned about kindness as a force of healing.