Before there was Stormi and Miso, there was just Stormi. This is going to tell the story of how and why I got Miso and also the difficulty in introducing the two together.
Let’s flashback a few years ago to when I was in high school. I received Stormi as my Christmas gift when I was a sophomore in high school. I had always wanted a cat but I never thought my parents would agree to let me get one. I got Stormi from a nearby shelter when she was just kitten. The reason I picked her was she had energy and no fear of humans. Also she was really tiny and cute. I brought her home and she quickly adjusted to being an indoor-outdoor cat. My parents also had a dog and Stormi and him quickly became best friends. This was the only expose to other animals that Stormi knew. When I moved away to college, I always felt bad leaving Stormi and whenever I came home for break, she would meow and follow me around everywhere like she missed me. Because of this, I really wanted to move off campus so I could bring her back to school with me.
Junior year of college, I finally was able to move off campus and bring Stormi with me. I think it was quite the adjustment for her and she developed some behavioral issues. I did some research on behavioral issues in cats, specifically surrounding big changes in a cats life. One thing that I kept seeing over and over again was that as cats got older, they started to loose their spark and what helped bring back that spark was to get them a kitten to keep them company. Because I was in school and I also worked a part-time job, I feel like I was never at my apartment and Stormi got lonely.
One of my boyfriend’s friend had cat that had kittens. She said she was reserving one of those kittens for my boyfriend and his sister. They did end up taking a kitten home, but they found that they too were not frequently at their house to play with the kitten so the kitten was getting lonely. Eventually, my boyfriend’s sister said she didn’t want to take care of the kitten anyways because her allergies were getting really bad. So then instead of rehoming their kitten, we all decided to introduce her to my cat to see if they got along. This is where Storm and Miso first met.
If you know much about cats, you should know that oftentimes, two female cats typically don’t get along very well together and we quickly discovered this with Stormi and Miso (yes they didn’t get along at first!). Stormi would constantly hiss and growl at Miso and she didn’t want to be near her at all. Poor Miso would be confused about why Stormi didn’t like her. I will admit that we didn’t introduce the cats in the proper way. The proper way to introduce cats is to have them live in two separate rooms for a few weeks so that they can get used to each other’s scent and presence before they actually come face to face. Unfortunately, I live in a studio apartment so I honestly don’t really have the space to put two cats in two separate rooms for a few weeks. So we decided just to throw them together and see what happened.
It took them a few weeks to finally get used to each other. A few weeks of content growling, hissing, and warning each other not to get close. Even after this phase went away, they still weren’t best friends. Not yet. At this point in time, they just tolerated each other’s presence but that was pretty much it. And it was like this for the next month or so.
To me, I think the catalyst that brought them from just tolerating each other, to best friends, was a month apart for winter break. During winter break, Miso went to a friend’s house and I brought Stormi home with me. During this month, Stormi was back at her old stomping grounds and I think she was much happier here. She had the freedom to go inside or outside as she pleased and she adjusted back to this life almost immediately. The friend that I left Miso with, has a male cat around the same age as Stormi. According to my friend, it took about a week for her cat and Miso to become friends but after that, they became inseparable. I think this helped Miso learn how to be a good friend and maybe respect another cat’s boundaries.
After winter break, I reintroduced Stormi and Miso and I was scared that they would have forgotten each other. It did take about a week for them to readjust to each other but honestly something must have clicked between them because this time around, they actually became best friends. Their bond felt much different than it was before winter break. This time it felt like they were actually sisters. They play fight each other and communicate with each other. They groom each other and nap together. And this is where we are at today!
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