Vincent The Dragon

This is Mrs. Niki.

She has been a stray that comes and goes for the past few years, very skittish and would run away from you and not come in close contact.
She basically just rooted around in the compost pile looking for scraps and then would leave.

She befriended the family of raccoons that visit the houses here and would get fed with them.

Over time I have managed to get her to trust us enough that she would not run away though would not let you come within a few feet of her.

Last year she finally let me touch her and a few weeks later she finally let me pet her. She lowered her head to give a head but and I gave her a good petting. You could see a light went off in her head and she remembered that pettings are a nice thing to have...And she wanted more. She would get petted and talked to when I came home and then before bed time as well as when William went outside to smoke, but she remained very skittish and would run from you if you moved. She now had a regular feeding schedule and mostly just hung around the house. One day she took over a cardboard box I had on the car port and that became her new hide out. I eventually moved the box against the wall of the house, then added a second box to give it a semi-roof. then blankets. I tried to get her to go into the garage which still has a cat door. She understood the cat door and would immediately vacate the garage if I took her into it and then stopped petting her. Box was upgraded to large copier box with a door opening, foam glued to the insides for insulation and a cat bed for winter. It got quite cold this year so I added a plug-in warming pad. She seemed quite content and became box house cat. we tried to coax her into the house many times but she would have nothing for it. One of the nights it got down to 6 degree and I got worried because she was gone all day, finally coming home in the night. The next morning she was acting odd, following me around and meowing. Like a typical loaner stray, her fur was not the best; she had ear mites and while enjoying the petting, regular meals of good food and a warm and dry place to live she seemed frumpy. Anyway...I scooped her up and gave her cuddles to get her good and warm and brought her inside. She was scared but did not mind and was not trying to escape the house. Prince is a pretty quiet cat and doesn't seem to want anything to do with Niki. He is an old cat and mostly stays in the office as it's HIS room. Shadow was all hissy and yelled a lot. I spent the next few weeks sleeping on the couch, Niki would come and sleep with me or near me. She got broad spectrum parasite stuff and you can tell it makes a big difference. Her ears are dirty still but no longer hot to the touch, eyes are clearer, her belly is not bloated and she is shedding like mad which is being replaced with soft clean fur. At first she would find places to hide and or face the wall but did not meow or howl or try to exit the house when we opened the door. Generally you want to give a new cat coming into a house with existing cats a room to have alone and let them come to each other on their own terms but this is a small house and I had no such room. Lots of visible play time with Shadow (when he was not being a hissy little bitch) eventually Shadow decided its play time with Niki and they have been spotted playing together. Niki is playing, running around and being a cuddle monster. She is a BIG cat, its hard to capture size without a reference but her head is fist sized. She looks to have been fixed and I think she is one of the pizza places stray kittens. At one point the place attracted a small colony which they took donations for to have them fixed and released a few years back. She has a few battle scars, missing some bits of here ears which is where her name comes from. She has a large nick missing from one of them. She has turned into a big sweet kitty, Shadow is happy to have someone to play with (Prince is not a player). Hopefully she will teach Shadow some manners as he is an asshole and she is twice his size with claws (he was front de-clawed) but i doubt it.