Siblings are Tough

Piper and Cherry did not get along well at first. We always assumed Cherry would be fine with another cat because she's sweet as can be, loves to play, and was with lots of other cats at the shelter. She disagreed.

We brought Piper home and put her in a separate room. I had done so much reading on introducing two cats so I thought it would go smoothly. What the books don't tell you is that it is a long and rough process. There were many times I thought we had made a mistake and I was so worried about Cherry. The first few meetings went terribly. Piper just wanted to attack and Cherry did not want anything to do with her.

We ended up having to quarantine Piper for two weeks due to some medical issues. Her lymph nodes were swollen and we weren't sure what was causing it. The vet suggested we wait two weeks and bring her back. She was also concerned because Piper's paperwork had nothing about a FIV test (she had one but the shelter didn't give me all her paperwork). Turns out nothing was really wrong with Piper and we now just believe it was allergies. We switched her food and she's fine.

So, we took things slower with the girls. We would separate them with a screen and eventually let them hang out together. It was a slow start, but then all of a sudden they were fine with each other. They still aren't great friends, but they play and tolerate each other. Some days we get really cute pictures:

Those are my legs in between them

And other days we get this:

Piper flattened the hamper on Cherry. She was able to back out of it pretty quickly. This is now Piper's favorite thing to do when Cherry is in the hamper. What a devil.