#oneaday Day 48: My Cat is Sad

My cat is sad, and it's making me sad.

It may also be the case that I am sad, and I am, as a result, ascribing human emotions to my cat. But I choose to believe that she is sad. Regardless of whether or not she actually is sad, she's definitely been acting a little out of the ordinary recently, and that makes me worry about her.

When we got Meg, she had clearly always been with Ruby, who passed away in November after an accident. We're still not to this day sure if Meg was actually Ruby's mother or not, but we suspect that may have been the case. Meg seemed to cope reasonably well after Ruby passed on, though it was clear she was looking around, wondering where her former companion had been.

She also watched us while we buried Ruby in the garden, so I think she knew what was going on; we saw her sitting on Ruby's grave on more than one occasion, and while this was probably a coincidence, again I like to think this was Meg going to see her departed friend.

Just recently, Andie has been building a "catio" on the back of our house. This is an enclosure that we'll be able to let Meg out into without her (hopefully, anyway) being able to get out and roam anywhere that she might get into an accident. I suspect Meg is better at taking care of herself than Ruby was — Ruby's eyesight was quite bad, for example — but we still don't want to take any chances.

I'm not sure how Meg is going to take to this. She doesn't roam very far, but she does like to go out, torment the neighbours' dog and have a shit in someone else's garden. I think the building work has stressed her out a bit, which is why she's been behaving a bit out of sorts, but I suspect she's also feeling lonely — she's become quite "clingy" over the course of the last couple of months, always wanting to be in the same room as both of us whenever possible, even more than she already did. And with us both out at work for most of the day on weekdays, she's left by herself in the house with no company, feline or otherwise, and I think that's starting to take its toll a bit.

As such, now the "catio" is pretty much done — aside from various accoutrements inside to make it more interesting and fun for Meg, such as platforms for her to (not) jump on and a scratching post for her to (not) sharpen her claws on — we think we're going to seriously look out for a new playmate for her. The fact we've built the catio means that we're able to seriously show that we understand the circumstances under which we lost Ruby, and that we want to prevent that happening again, so hopefully that will stand us in good stead with the local adoption places.

The challenge now is in finding a cat up for adoption who is okay with other cats. And then introducing them to Meg. But that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it!

For now, we're doing our best to take care of Meg and let her know she is very much loved by both of us, and that we'll do everything we can to keep her safe and make her happy.