@Ken Anderson , I've been wondering....... did you ever get Smokey to come in the house?
No, he had gotten to the point where I could pet him regularly, but he balked at being picked up or stepping through the door. For the past couple of weeks, he's been treating me like he thinks I'm going to kill him or something. He still comes for food but waits outside for me to set it down on the porch, go back inside, and close the interior door. I don't know what's going on with him.
Meanwhile, there's another beautiful male who, I think, has been homeless only since late winter or early spring, because that's when he first showed up here for food, but he looks well-groomed and not feral. In fact, he likes it when I stay on the porch with him while he eats because he's more worried about being approached by another cat or a raccoon, and I suppose he knows that I'll have his back.
He's not fully comfortable with me, but even when I picked him up one time, he struggled to be put back down, but did so very politely without using claws or teeth, and didn't run when I put him back down. He was just communicating that he didn't want to be held. I call him Sobaka, which means "new cat" or something similar in Russian, I think.
A couple of days ago, instead of placing the food dish on the porch, I set it on the landing, just inside the house, and he ate there, then took a few steps into my office to nose around. Ella was in the adjacent room on a futon and didn't feel the need to come out and object, although I'm sure she knew Sobaka had been inside. Once he went back out, Ella came out to sniff around where he had been, and then asked for a treat.
Last night, when Sobaka came, he didn't even give me the option. He faced the interior door, waiting for me to give him permission to come in. As soon as I opened the door, he walked into the house to wait for his food. First, I offered him taurine treats, and he ate them from my hand. Then he ate most of the cat food and explored pretty much everything in my office, even going under the bookcases, rolling over in Ella's scratcher, and climbing the cat tree.
While he was exploring, I closed the door. He looked, then decided it wasn't a threat and continued exploring. He considered going into the next room but probably realized Ella was there and decided not to. He went back to the outside door, finished the cat food, and then placed both his front paws on the door to ask me to open it. He walked out calmly and spent about five minutes rolling around on the scratcher that I had placed on the porch.
He's very polite. When he comes for food at night, he walks onto the porch far enough to trigger the motion detection light, then back out to the front step, and doesn't come back onto the porch until I say, "You can come in." He hisses at me once in a while, but I think he's just communicating that he's afraid of something because he doesn't show any other signs of anger. I take his occasional brief hiss to simply mean, "I'm scared," or "I don't know what to do."
I've carried Ella to the door a couple of times when Sobaka was eating, and she doesn't seem to care one way or another, although she hisses at a couple of other cats who come around. She's okay with Smoke too.
So, Sobaka has probably never survived a Maine winter and needs a home, so if he and Ella get along okay, which could simply mean that no one gets hurt, then I will take him in.
I am still open to taking Smoke in as well, and had expected to have him in by now, but instead he's moving in the other direction. Three cats is my limit, however. I have had five once, but three of them were related (mother and two daughters), and the other two were a mother and daughter, as well.
We've had some cool nights here, and I think he's looking for a home. He's very polite
What do I have on my hands here with this cat?