We had a fabulous time on our road trip to Dawson City, Yukon. The dogs became expert campers and Oliver the Min Pin got some new sweaters and some booties to help him cope with the weather.
On our journey back to Vancouver Island, we arranged to stop at the Williams Lake SPCA which is located in northern British Columbia. It's a very rural shelter which just does not have the number of potential adoptive homes that we are lucky to have in Victoria. Bigger shelters will sometimes help out smaller shelters by taking in some of their animals, because they are able to adopt out more than the little shelters can. So...we stopped at the Williams Lake SPCA and picked up five adorable kittens to take with us to Victoria. The trick was, we had one more night of camping before we would be home.
Ever tried camping with two dogs and five kittens? It was a bit of an adventure!
The kittens were actually very adaptable and well behaved during the road trip and are at the Victoria SPCA awaiting adoption as I write.
After we got back home we grabbed our feral cat Texel back from our feral cat contact, who had been keeping him in a kennel at her own house while we were gone. The first night, I crawled under the futon to pet him for a bit, and it was as though he had never left. I got him purring before too long, and now we will play the waiting game.
Tex hides all day and does not actively seek attention, even though he'll start purring after a bit if you pet him. The goal now is to just do what we've been doing and wait for him to decide to be a 'normal' house cat. I am confident that our gentle boy will come around before too long.
Since he does not have an aggressive bone in his body, I'm also considering pulling him out of his hiding spot once a week and holding him out in the open, to help him learn that it's not a bad thing. Wish me luck!
