misshissygrowl

My big sister is Zoe, she's a beautiful Tonkinese. My folks got her from the kennel where their other cat was being boarded during vacation. She needed a home, so they took her in. She's a very quiet kitty. Folks weren't used to that as their other siamese, before me, was a real talker. Their siamese at that time, about 5 years ago, was very old and they finally had to put him to sleep at 18 years old. So that left Zoe by herself. Not that she didn't like that, in fact, she probably really loved being the only cat in the house so she could get real spoiled! She's a good girl, as my mama keeps saying. They think she had a troubled childhood maybe because she's not very playful, always on guard, that type of thing. Well, after couple years she really started to come out of her shell. She would play with mama with her toys, sleep on the bed at night with them, that sort of thing. Then in May 2008 I arrived on the scene. I was about 7-8 weeks old when they brought me home. I immediately ran right up to Zoe and jumped on her to play. She would have none of that! She started hissing and growling at me! Mama was real scared, she thought Zoe was gonna hurt me. But my daddy said "leave them alone, they'll learn to get along". But noises were coming out of Zoe that they had never heard before! The next day when my folks left for a while, mama was afraid she was gonna come home and find a dead baby kitty (me)! Look, for my entire 8 weeks, all I did was play with my siblings and we had a blast! I wanted to do the same with Zoe. But she growled and hissed every time I wanted to play. So mama started calling her misshissygrowl! It's been almost two years now and Zoe will play with me, but under her terms only. She's the one in charge. I'm very easy going so we play a little, then when Zoe decides she's had enough, she'll growl and run away. But you know what's funny? As we're playing she'll be growling the whole time! She'll roll over to play and growl at the same time - mixed signals for sure! Sometimes when she's out in the screen room and I'm inside the house, I can she her wanting to come in the cat flap, so I'll hide off to the side so she can't see me. She's very cautious, stares in to make sure the coast is clear, then slowly come through the flap. When she's about half way in (too late to turn back!) I'll attack her! She runs so fast it's hilarious! When she wants to come into a room, and I'm already there, she'll stop and look around for the best possible route to get around me! She'll walk real slow along the wall, then run real fast to get away from me. If she'd only understand I only want to play! Well, it took her a long time to come around and feel safe in her new home, so maybe in another 5 years she'll figure out that we can be friends! So, that's how she became known as misshissygrowl.