Jennifer has wanted to get a second cat for a long time. On Wednesday we went to the animal shelter in Arnprior — they’d put out word that they were up to their armpits in cats. This is who we came home with:

Picking this one wasn’t easy. Because Arnprior’s is a no-kill shelter, there were a lot of cats that fit our criteria: male, and younger than Maya (i.e., less than three). And the younger cats were passing around eye and upper respiratory infections that, were it not for the close quarters, would have cleared up on their own. They were well looked after at the shelter, but it was hard going to pick a kitty based on his health.

This one was a little larger (he’s four months old, so not yet de-nutted) and, like some other male cats I’ve encountered, is a total affection pig and purring machine. He’s got a healthy cold, and sneezes even more loudly than he purrs.

Since he’s gotten here, he’s slept a lot, but is getting more active and is eating a lot more; unlike the pear-shaped Maya, he’s extremely, if not worrisomely, thin. He wasn’t comfortable using Maya’s litter box, apparently, so he pissed on the couch twice before we gave him another box, which — thankfully! — he’s using.

As expected, Maya was right miserable when he showed up, but, also as expected, she’s beginning to come around. She was never a snuggly or tactile kitty, unlike this feller, so the comparison makes it hard to tell whether she’s mad at us or her usual grumpy self. She’s stopped growling at him, though. He’s not as bouncy as Florence’s cat, so my hopes that a high-sprung kitten would put Maya through her paces and lose her some weight have not yet come to pass.

Still working on a name. I thought that it would be really cute and obscure to name him after that little kitten in the bulldog-and-kitten cartoons from Warner Bros. — where the bulldog must go to extreme lengths to hide, protect or feed the little kitty that sleeps on his back. Turns out, though, that the duo are named Marc Antony and Pussyfoot and that the kitten is female — “Pussyfoot” doesn’t quite seem right. For the moment, we’re referring to him as “the itty bitty kitty”; we’d better come up with something before that sticks. (But then I call Maya the überkitty all the time.) Still working on a name.